This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.
A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals.
The human mind is a curious thing. It can take just so much and no more.
The best that we can hope for in this life is that we shall not have sons and grandsons of whom we need to be ashamed.
Alas, our rulers are not gods, but puny, fallible men, like the kings who constantly forget their parts, and we common men should be their prompters.
The greater success a man has made, the more he fears a climb down.
And if the reader has no taste for what he reads, all the time is wasted.
There is no proper time and place for reading. When the mood for reading comes, one can read anywhere.
A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from.
Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
The most bewildering thing about man is his idea of work and the amount of work he imposes upon himself, or civilization has imposed upon him. All nature loafs, while man alone works for a living.
Since the invention of the flush toilet and the vacuum carpet cleaner, the modern man seems to judge a man’s moral standards by his cleanliness, and thinks a dog the more highly civilized for having a weekly bath and a winter wrapper round his belly.
As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini.
The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heartbreaks.
Everything has its place and time. We men of the nineteen-forties can smile at the mistakes of the nineteen-thirties, and, in turn, the men of the nineteen-fifties will laugh at the mistakes of the nineteen-forties. It is this historical perspective that shall save us.
It is not dirt but the fear of dirt which is the sign of man’s degeneration, and it is dangerous to judge a man’s physical and moral sanity by outside standards.
Nobody is ever misunderstood at a fireside; he may only be disagreed with.
Winter in Peking is insurpassable, unless indeed it is surpassed by the other seasons in that blessed city. For Peking is a city clearly marked by the seasons, each perfect in its own way and each different from the others.
All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell.
The age calls for simple statements and restatements of simple truths. The prophets of doom are involved, those who would bring light must be clear.
Neckties strangle clear thinking.