If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not.
We are justified in enforcing good morals, for they belong to all mankind; but we are not justified in enforcing good manners, for good manners always mean our own manners.
Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.
People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.
The whole order of things is as outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it.
There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.
Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.
Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.
Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.
Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.
Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.
Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich.
The only defensible war is a war of defense.
When we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but its obscurity. We exult in its very invisibility.
True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.
Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.
And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.
Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.
Nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze.