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.
How much larger your life would be if you were smaller in it.
Men in England are ruled, at this minute by the clock, by brutes who refuse them bread, by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern, and therefore wish to enslave.
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
Atheism is too theological.
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.
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.
Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.
Modern man is staggering and losing his balance because he is being pelted with little pieces of alleged fact which are native to the newspapers; and, if they turn out not to be facts, that is still more native to newspapers.
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".
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.
Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.
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.
Doing nothing is sometimes one of the highest of the duties of man.
All government is an ugly necessity.
Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground.
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
In real life the people who are most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
Life is indeed terribly complicated—to a man who has lost his principles.
Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place...The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which made him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.
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.
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