“Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.”

“The simplification of anything is always sensational.”

“Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.” 

“An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.” 

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”

“To hurry through one’s leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions.”

“None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them.” 

“Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.

“How quickly revolutions grow old; and, worse still, respectable.” 

“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.” 

“All government is an ugly necessity.”

“He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative.” 

“Men are ruled, at this minute by the clock, by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern.”

“It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile.”

“I never could see anything wrong in sensationalism; and I am sure our society is suffering more from secrecy than from flamboyant revelations.” 

“The whole pleasure of marriage is that it is a perpetual crisis.”

“Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake.”

“Theology is only thought applied to religion.”

“It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic and significant to his own imagination as he can.”

“There are some desires that are not desirable.” 

“Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.”

“Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified.”

“All men thirst to confess their crimes more than tired beasts thirst for water; but they naturally object to confessing them while other people, who have also committed the same crimes, sit by and laugh at them.”