Ramesh Balsekar

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

Life too near paralyses art.

I have not become the Kings First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.

Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.

What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch?

Knowledge comes by eyes always open and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power.

There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.

If man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relationship is a new word.

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.