"The universe is a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere."

"I have no desire to be famous. I have a desire to be read."

"I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years…"

"The singular feature of the mental structure of the ape is the faculty of imitation."

"The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us, (for a brief period, at least) are, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, persons of mere address, perseverance, effrontery—in a word, busy-bo…"