The rural world was not ripe for him. A man should be only partially before his time—to be completely to the vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame.… - Thomas Hardy

Had Philip's warlike son been intellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilisation without bloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike hero that he seemed; but nobody would have heard of an Alexander.

This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don’t you think so?

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The scales are balanced so nicely that a feather would turn them.

A well proportioned mind is one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that it will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it will never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest, or exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity.