A new student once asked Euclid, “But what shall I get by learning these things?”

The geometer called his slave and said, “Give him three obols, since he must make gain out of what he learns.”

“Round numbers are always false.” — Samuel Johnson

“Not what I have but what I do is my kingdom.” — Thomas Carlyle

“Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door.” — Charles Lamb

“It is not impossible that in a real dream of sleep, some one may have created an antagonist who beat him in an argument to prove that he was awake.”

— Augustus De Morgan, Formal Logic, 1847

“I’d rather be a failure at something I enjoy than be a success at something I hate.” — George Burns

“It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

“He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.” — Cicero