Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.
All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
Here ends another day, during which I have had eyes, ears, hands and the great world around me. Tomorrow begins another day. Why am I allowed two?
All things are from God; and above all, reason and imagination and the great gifts of the mind. They are good in themselves; and we must not altogether forget their origin even in their perversion.
Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all... As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.
Employers will give time to eat, time to sleep; they are in terror of a time to think.
In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven them mad was logic.
A modern vegetarian is also a teetotaler, yet there is no obvious connection between consuming vegetables and not consuming fermented vegetables. A drunkard, when lifted laboriously out of the gutter, might well be heard huskily to plead that he had fallen there through excessive devotion to a vegetable diet.
How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.
The real argument against aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant. For the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is ignorance of work.
With every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand.
Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.
The telescope makes the world smaller; it is only the microscope that makes it larger.
The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life.
Self-denial is the test and definition of self-government.
Classic literature is still something that hangs in the air like a song.
Around every corner is another gift waiting to surprise us, and it will surprise us if we can achieve control over our natural tendencies to make comparisons [to things that are better rather than things that are worse], to take things for granted [rather than imagining how much worse things would be if they weren't there and so feeling grateful], and to feel entitled!
The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.
The world will very soon be divided, unless I am mistaken, into those who still go on explaining our success, and those somewhat more intelligent who are trying to explain our failure.
The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.
The rich are the scum of the earth in every country.
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know.
There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner.
The modern world is a crowd of very rapid racing cars all brought to a standstill and stuck in a block of traffic.
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