“It will only encourage the lower classes to move about.” — The Duke of Wellington, opposing railways

“After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.” — Cato the Elder

“At least I have the modesty to admit that lack of modesty is one of my failings.” — Hector Berlioz

“I am tired of all this thing called science. … We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped.”

— Pennsylvania senator Simon Cameron, opposing funding for the Smithsonian Institution, 1861

“I would like to know of what this Institution consists. I would like the gentleman from New York or the gentleman from Vermont to tell us how many of his constituents ever saw this Institution or ever will see it or ever want to see it? It is enough to make any man or woman sick to visit that Institution. No one can expect to get any benefit from it.”

— New York representative Lewis Selye, 1868

“Age is a high price to pay for maturity.” — Tom Stoppard

“Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.” — George Eliot

“We praise or blame as one or the other affords more opportunity for exhibiting our power of judgment.” — Nietzsche

“Everyone complains of his memory, and no one complains of his judgment.” — La Rochefoucauld

“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.” — Marcus Aurelius