Quotes from William Milligan Sloane

The adroit man profits by everything, neglects nothing which can increase his chances; the less adroit, by sometimes disregarding a single chance, fails in everything.

The Corsican nobleman di Buonaparte was now entirely transformed into the French general Bonaparte. The process had been long and difficult: loyal Corsican; mercenary cosmopolitan, ready as an expert artillery officer for service in any land or under any banner; lastly, Frenchman, liberal, and revolutionary.

The newly rich lost their balance and their stolidity, becoming as giddy and frivolous and aggressive as the worst.

With only the dimmest memories of a high-school course or two in general science, they find themselves confronting dialog which seems largely derived from the frontiers of theoretical physics and a group of characters who might, conceivably, enjoy chatting with Albert Einstein, but certainly no one less advanced. A few pages of all this obscurity and the hapless first reader ... closes the magazine or book ... and abandons the field to the children ...

Why was it, he wondered, that all these stories envisaged technological marvels by the bushel, but seemed to assume that social structure and culture wouldn't change in over four centuries? (Chad Oliver, "The Ant and the Eye")