“It is a defect of God's humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them.”

“Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in. That's why you can't believe in the afterlife, Valentine....”

“Chater: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction!Septimus: Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demand...”

“If knowledge isn't self-knowledge it isn't doing much, mate. Is the universe expanding? Is it contracting? Is it standing on one leg and singing 'When Father Painted the Parlour'? Leave me out. I c...”

“Seduced her? Every time I turned round she was up a library ladder. In the end I gave in. That reminds meI spotted something between her legs that made me think of you.”

“Carnal embrace is sexual congress, which is the insertion of the male genital organ into the female genital organ for purposes of procreation and pleasure. Fermats last theorem, by contrast, assert...”

“Praise not the day until evening has come, a woman until she is burnt, a sword until it is tried, a maiden until she is married, ice until it has been crossed, beer until it has been drunk.”

“Haste is from the Devil.”

“The candle burned the moth:But soon it will vanish in its own fat.”

“A soldier never goes to war without his weapon.”

“Neither your work to be with insensible, nor their work to be with you.”

“who has never tasted what is bitter does not know what is sweet..”

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”