There are no new lies, no new heresies. Man is simply not that creative.
Wherever there is animal worship, there is human sacrifice.
The poor complain that they are governed badly. The rich complain that they are governed at all.
All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive.
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless.
Every great literature has always been allegorical - allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The 'Iliad' is only great because all life is a battle, the 'Odyssey' because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a riddle.
Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.
In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.
There'd be a lot less scandal if people didn't idealize sin and pose as sinners.
Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It avoids the crude requirement of polygamy. So long as you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem".
Atheism is too theological.
Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.
How much larger your life would be if you were smaller in it.
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
There is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs.
Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.
All government is an ugly necessity.
Doing nothing is sometimes one of the highest of the duties of man.
Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.
Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground.
Why do all the clerks and navvies in the railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket for that place they will reach. It is because after they have passed Sloane Square they know that the next station must be Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! oh, their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next station were unaccountably Baker Street!
In real life the people who are most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
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