Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness.
We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
Erudition, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
A friend is, as it were, a second self.
In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves also on the animal level. We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.
Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.
A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.
There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.
A Democrat -- too poor to be a capitalist, too rich to be a Communist.
Science increases our power in proportion as it lowers our pride.
A mother becomes a true grandmother the day she stops noticing the terrible things her children do because she is so enchanted with the wonderful things her grandchildren do.
Eat and drink with your relatives; do business with strangers.
Hope is patience with the lamp lit.
Never apologize for showing feeling...When you do so, you apologize for truth.
You'll catch a liar before you'll catch a cripple.
Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group.
The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.
A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it.
An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.
There were no books in Eden, and there will be none in heaven.
Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.
Physical prowess is for cowards; a little pain builds character.
Justice is simply the advantage of the stronger.
Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them must share the guilt for the dead.
The first victim of anger is the angry man.
This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.
Lovers' quarrels are the renewal of love.
We don't ask a flower any special reason for its existence. We just look at it and are able to accept it as being something different from ourselves.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
Paradox is the poisonous flower of quietism, the iridescent surface of the rotting mind, the greatest depravity of all.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven; confess them to man and you will be laughed at.
Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.
God heals, and the Doctor takes the Fee.
There are people who are so full of common sense that they haven't the slightest cranny left for their own sense.
Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it, struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or country fill his heart.
Freedom is participation in power.
Perfection is a road, not a destination.
The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.
There are only two families in the world, the Haves and the Have-Nots.
Being a writer in a library is rather like being a eunuch in a harem.
Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
It is well that war is so terrible — lest we should grow too fond of it.
The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he.
