“If one adds anything small or great to the queen of virtues, piety, or on the other hand takes something from it, in either case he will change and transform its nature. Addition will beget superstition and subtraction will beget impiety.”

“One unscrupulous distortion of the truth tends to beget other and opposite distortions.”

“Most marriages don't add two people together. They subtract one from the other.”

“Health and cheerfulness mutually beget each other.”

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”

“Infinity is the land of mathematical hocus pocus. There Zero the magician is king. When Zero divides any number he changes it without regard to its magnitude into the infinitely small [great? ], and inversely, when divided by any number he begets the infinitely great [small? ]. In this domain the circumference of the circle becomes a straight line, and then the circle can be squared. Here all ranks are abolished, for Zero reduces everything to the same level one way or another. Happy is the kingdom where Zero rules!”

“A great library easily begets affection, which may deepen into love.”

“War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory and good fortune.”

“Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness. It is, Sir, the great grandfather of cuckoldom.”

“There can be no question that the practice of vivisection hardens the sensibility of the operator and begets indifference to the infliction of pain, as well as great carelessness in judging of its severity.”