It is one thing to believe in witches, and quite another to believe in witch-smellers.
He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a s...
For these disguises did not disguise, but reveal.
Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right.
An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as...
We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain us from bad laws.
In dealing with the arrogant asserter of doubt, it is not the right method to tell him to stop doubting. It is rather the right method to tell him to go on doubting , to doubt a little more, to doubt...
I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story. If there was no murdered man under...
But there is in everything a reasonable division of labour. I have written the book, and nothing on earth would induce me to read it.
Your offer, he said, is far too idiotic to be declined.
They twisted even decent sin to shapes not to be named:Men were ashamed of honour; but we were not ashamed.
There should be a burnished tablet let into the ground on the spot where some courageous man first ate Stilton cheese, and survived.
The wise man will follow a star, low and large and fierce in the heavens, but the nearer he comes to it the smaller and smaller it will grow,till he finds it the humble lantern over some little inn or...
The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it...
Private lives are more important than public reputations.
No one has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain hearty eagerness in eating and drinking.
Man is more himself, more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing and grief superficial.
It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken upon the wheel. It is not true that we have never descended from these thrones. We have descended into hell. We were complaining of u...
But the more shrewdly and earnestly we study the histories of men, the less ready shall we be to make use of the word ‘artificial.’ Nothing in the world has ever been artificial. Many customs, many dr...
The primary paradox that man is superior to all the things around him and yet is at their mercy.