1. "But I won't take algebra," cried the lady decisively. "I never did, and I never do. But I'm awfully interested in embalming."
2. And yet so incurable is the love of detraction, perhaps beyond what the charitable reader will easily believe, that I have been assured, by more than one credible person, how some of my enemies have industriously whispered about, that one Isaac Newton, an instrument-maker, formerly living near Leicester Fields, and afterwards a workman in the mint at the Tower, might possibly pretend to vie with me for fame in future times. The man, it seems, was knighted for making sun-dials better than others of his trade, and was thought to be a conjurer, because he knew how to draw lines and circles upon a slate, which nobody could understand. But adieu to all noble attempts for endless renown, if the ghost of an obscure mechanic shall be raised up to enter into competition with me, only for his skill in making pot-hooks and hangers with a pencil, which many thousand accomplished gentlemen and ladies can perform as well with pen and ink upon a piece of paper, and in a manner as little intelligible as those of Sir Isaac.
3. (Translated from the German)
What I am seeking and what I need is a simple, natural task, a person who needs me. Appointment at a university would from the start mean my fitting into a traditional, sanctified, and mechanized bureaucracy, and what I crave is just the opposite of that.
4. We mathematicians are arrant gossips (one of my mathematical colleagues has entreated me not to reveal this to the public) and when two of us get together the invariable subject matter of conversation is the short-comings of a third mathematician. We have current among us such merry tales as that of the Professor and the Lady Baggage Thief; that of the Senior Wrangler and What he Said to the Proctor at the Door of Great Saint Mary's; that of the Bibulous Scientist and the Check that Went Astray; and many others of the same sort. Unfortunately for our general standing, however, we have not participated in any major crime, at least since the days of Cardano, and as you all know that was a very long time ago. Of course, I have often felt like murdering a colleague who has beaten me to a big killing, but I have never yet had the full courage of my convictions. Some day perhaps I'll do it.
5. "... the country is almost ruined with pious white people: such pious politicians as we have just before elections, -- such pious goings on in all departments of church and state, that a fellow doesn't know who'll cheat him next."
6. `Have you seen the last Spiritual Journal?'
asked No. 1 of No. 2
in a low voice.
No. 2 had just read it.
`A very remarkable article that,' said No. 1, `upon the death-bed of
the Pope.'
`No one is beyond hope,' answered No. 2.
`I have heard of it, but not seen it,' said No. 3.
A pause.
`What is it about?' asked [deleted].
`The late Pope Sixtus the Sixteenth,' said No. 3; `he seems to have
died a believer.'
A sensation. Charles looked as if he wished to know more.
7. The inner walls of the warehouse were covered with numbers. Equations as complex as a neural network had been scraped in the frost. At some point in the calculation the mathematician had changed from using numbers to using letters, and then letters themselves hadn't been sufficient; brackets like cages enclosed expressions which were to normal mathematics what a city is to a map.
They got simpler as the goal neared -- simpler, yet containing in the flowing lines of their simplicity a spartan and wonderful complexity.
8. "These are the stains," she said; "nothing will remove them from the place -- there they have been for two hundred and fifty years -- and there they will remain while the floor is left standing -- neither water nor anything else will ever remove them from that spot."
Now, our cockney, amongst other articles, sold Scouring Drops, as they are called, and a stain of two hundred and fifty years' standing was interesting to him, not because it had been caused by the blood of a Queen's favourite, slain in her apartment, but because it offered so admirable an opportunity to prove the efficacy of his unequalled Detergent Elixir. Down on his knees went our friend, but neither in horror or devotion.
"Two hundred and fifty years, ma'am, and nothing to take it away? Why, if it had been five hundred, I have something in my pocket will fetch it out in five minutes. D'ye see this elixir, ma'am? I will shew you the stain vanish in a moment."
9. If, for instance, you are caught out by the menu, say blandly, `I've never been able to pay much attention to Latin languages,' or, better still, `the Romance group'; and to such direct questions as `Do you speak Magyar?' answer, `Not nearly as well as I ought.' It is good policy to introduce linguistic questions whenever possible; for instance, if someone says he has spent three weeks in Cairo, instead of asking about the hotels, say, `Tell me, is much demotic Armenian spoken there now?', and if big-game hunting in Kenya is mentioned, say, `I suppose one can muddle along with Swahili, Arabic and Kikuyu?' You must also be an expert on accents -- `... she spoke Catalan with a strong Cretan accent...'
10. Oh ay, it is but twenty pages long, But every page having an ample marge, And every marge enclosing in the midst A square of text that looks like a little blot, The text no larger than the limbs of fleas; And every square of text an awful charm, Writ in a language that has long gone by. So long, that mountains have arisen since With cities on their flanks -- thou read the book! And every margin scribbled, crost and cramm'd With comment, densest condensation, hard To mind and eye; but the long sleepless nights Of my long life have made it easy to me. And none can read the text, not even I; And none can read the comment but myself; And in the comment did I find the charm. O, the results are simple;