Christmas is forced upon a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press; on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred.
Civilized society is one huge bourgeoisie: no nobleman dares now shock his greengrocer.
We must not stay as we are, doing always what was done last time, or we shall stick in the mud. Yet neither must we undertake a new world as catastrophic Utopians, and wreck our civilization in our hurry to mend it.
I myself have been particularly careful never to say a civil word to the United States. I have scoffed at their inhabitants as a nation of villagers. I have defined the 100 % American as 99 % an idiot. And they adore me.
We veneer civilization by doing unkind things in a kind way.
The conversion of Paul was no conversion at all; it was Paul who converted the religion that has raised one man above sin and death.
My opportunities were still there, nay, they multiplied tenfold; but the strength and youth to cope with them began to fail, and to need eking out with the shifty cunning of experience.
In a hospital they throw you out into the street before you are half cured, but in a nursing home they don’t let you out till you are dead.
When we know what God is, we shall be gods ourselves.
Nobody can say a word against Greek: it stamps a man at once as an educated gentlemen.
To disbelieve in marriage is easy: to love a married woman is easy; but to betray a comrade, to be disloyal to a host, to break the covenant of bread and salt, is impossible.
The one point on which all women are in furious secret rebellion against the existing law is the saddling of the right to a child with the obligation to become the servant of a man.
A soldier is an anachronism of which we must get rid.
Never resist temptation: prove all things: hold fast that which is good.
What I say today everybody will say tomorrow, though they will not remember who put it into their heads. Indeed they will be right for I never remember who puts things into my head : it is the Zeitgeist.
A vegetarian is not a person who lives on vegetables, any more than a Catholic is a person who lives on cats.
Spend all you have before you die, and do not outlive yourself.
All Artists are Anarchists.
People get tired of everything, and of nothing sooner than of what they most like.
It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one’s uncles.