It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life...
It is no good to tell an atheist that he is an atheist; or to charge a denier of immortality with the infamy of denying it; or to imagine that one can force an opponent to admit he is wrong, by provin...
It is a good sign in a nation when things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few...
Indeed the Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job is comforted with riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is indeed a type, in the sense of a prophecy, of things speaking with auth...
Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess players do... Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great English poe...
If you want to succeed at whist, either be a good whist-player, or play with marked cards. You may want a book about jumping; you may want a book about whist; you may want a book about cheating at whi...
If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer except slanging or silence.
I? What am I? roared the President, and he rose slowly to an incredible height, like some enormous wave about to arch above them and break. You want to know what I am, do you? Bull, you are a man of s...
I hold it clear, therefore, if anything is clear about thebusiness, that the Eugenists do not merely mean that the mass ofcommon men should settle each other's marriages between them; thequestion rema...
I earnestly hope that all children will spoil this book by painting the illustrations. I wanted to do this myself but the publishers would not let me. But let the colours you lay on be violent, gorgeo...
I do not know by what extraordinary mental accident modern writers so constantly connect the idea of progress with the idea of independent thinking.
I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upo...
Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.
His soul swayed in a vertigo of moral indecision. He had only to snap the thread of a rash vow made to a villainous society, and all his life could be as open and sunny as the square beneath him. He h...
For the moral basis, it is obvious that man's ethical responsibility varies with his knowledge of consequences
For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my...
Flippancy is a flower whose roots are often underground in the subconsciousness.
Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness.
Christianity is always out of fashion because it is always sane; and all fashions are mild insanities. When Italy is mad on art the Church seems too Puritanical; when England is mad on Puritanism the...
Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world.