"The finest inheritance you can give to a child is to allow it to make its own way, completely on its own feet."

"One must never be eccentric. If one's lot is cast among fools, it is necessary to study folly."

"Good questions outrank easy answers."

"Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense."

"There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and engineers. While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far the more certain."

"More than ever, the creation of the ridiculous is almost impossible because of the competition it receives from reality."

"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish."

"In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee."

"Good seamanship is recovering from an incident at sea. Great seamanship is avoiding an incident at sea."

"Being in a ship is like being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned."

"Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom."

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."