Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations...
Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.
What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.
Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.
He had allowed the advertisers to multiply his wants; he had learned to equate happiness with possessions, and prosperity with money to spend in a shop.
Sleep is the most blessed and blessing of all natural graces.
Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and beholder.
The physique of a Messiah. But too clever to believe in God or be convinced of his own mission. And too sensitive, even if he were convinced, to carry it out. His muscles would like to act and his fee...
Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons.
There's only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.
We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.
Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs.
For in spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody.
Only times and places, only names and ghosts.
Sons have always a rebellious wish to be disillusioned by that which charmed their fathers.
Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors.
Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations of misery.
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm.
The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.
An old codger rampant and still learning.