 A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. |
| The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar. |
| Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle. |
| The mere brute pleasure of reading the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing. |
| People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make. |
| To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless. |
| Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich. |
| Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously. Topics: Education |
| The only defensible war is a war of defense. |
| 'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.' |
| Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die. Topics: Courage |
| The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people. |
| Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around. |
| Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc. |
| A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things. |
| I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. |
| Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt. |
| Their is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect. |
| If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not. |
| We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end. |
