What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done.
We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
We balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculation.
Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire.[A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.]
There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible.
The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.
So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it.
One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.
Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old lovers are the worst.
No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.
Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.
Let us hear the suspicions. I will look after the proofs.
