He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity to admire a pelican.
Jesus promised his disciples three things – that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.
The woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn’t obeyed.
Just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree.
What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.
Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.
There is a corollary to the conception of being too proud to fight. It is that the humble have to do most of the fighting.
A mystic is a man who separates heaven and earth even if he enjoys them both.
Women are the only realists; their whole object in life is to pit their realism against the extravagant, excessive, and occasionally drunken idealism of men.
Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline.
Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin.
Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government.
The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt; they are forbidden to believe.
I need not pause to explain that crime is not a disease. It is criminology that is a disease.
A man must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool. It is absurd to say that a man is ready to toil and die for his convictions if he is not even ready to wear a wreathe around his head for them.
Unless a man becomes the enemy of an evil, he will not even become its slave but rather its champion.
Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right.
Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.
Even a bad shot is dignified when he accepts a duel.
Truth can understand error, but error cannot understand truth.