We then better understand the weakness of man, and the power of the Supreme: we are struck with the inflexible constancy of the laws which regulate t… - Adolphe Quetelet

Judgments upon books are formed with even more haste and levity than judgments upon men. Writings are talked of without being known; and people take up an opinion for or against, in consequence of decisions which it would cost them some trouble to determine the source. These are evils which must be borne with patience, and the more so because they are common.

A person examining too nearly a small portion of a very large circle... would see in this detached portion merely a certain quantity of physical points, grouped in a more or less irregular manner, and so, indeed, as to seem as if they had been arranged by chance... But, placing himself at a greater distance, the eye embraces of necessity a greater number of points, and already a degree of regularity is observable... and by removing still farther from the object, the observer loses sight of the individual points, no longer observes any accidental or odd arrangements amongst them, but discovers at once the law presiding over their general arrangements, and the precise nature of the circle so traced.

I would suggest... the idea of a work which should have for its object the analytic examination of the development of our intellectual faculties for each age. Now, I have aimed to present, in the work here reproduced, only an essay, only a particular example, of such an analysis, "which tends to show that the maximum of energy of the passions occurs about the age of twenty-five." The minimum is not then determined; and even when it shall be, by a sufficient number of observations, one will no more be able to apply it to any given individual in particular, than one could make use of a table of mortality to determine the period of his decease.