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...

The Countess was very good company and not really the featherhead she seemed; all one had to do with her was to observe the simple condition of not believing a word she said.

She was the most confusing person he had ever met

"You," she said, "are the ugliest man I ever saw." Sadly, the man answered, "Perhaps so, but I can't help that." "No," the woman allowed, "but you might stay at home."

I'd hate to have a kid like me.

Do gooders don't interest me. They are the least interesting people on the planet.

He was a worn-out old man whose eyes had quit caring about anything but the odds on three-year-olds.

For many thousands of years people had looked at expensive heads of hair and thought of how much food and warmth they represented, so obviously it was a thought of no use at all, so why bother to have...

If humanity were capable of being satisfied, then they'd all still be living in trees and eating bugs out of one another's fur.

Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping we won't find in another what we know is in ourselves, all the cowardice, weakness, laziness, dishonesty,...

No one in their right mind would attempt to salvage it, but there were plenty of people not in their right mind. The world was full of them, more produced every minute.

Some people think emotionally more often than they think politically. Some think politically more often than they think rationally. Others never think rationally about anything at all. No judgment...

If a huge genetic gap separated us from our closest relative in the animal kingdom, we could justifiably celebrate our brilliance. We might be entitled to walk around thinking we're distant and...

And while his mother's lecture had gone over his seven-year-old head, Pasquale saw now what she meant - how much easier life would be if our intentions and our desires could always be aligned.

Danny would have thought it comical if it had come from any other source, on any other day, in any other country. But Curtis had come to the table with something they'd never expected, something they...

Alas, if all humans were wise and had more good will the world would be a paradise now it is mostly a hell

Mendel hated motorists. Give a man a car of his own and he leaves humility and common sense behind him in the garage.

You don't trade in the devil you know for the one you don't know.

See Monsieur Geborand, buying a pennyworth of paradise.

There is a prospect greater than the sea, and that is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.

In that case, of course, people are not spiteful in silence, but moan; but they are not candid moans, they are malignant moans, and the malignancy is the whole point. The enjoyment of the sufferer...

The more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.

I am sorry I can say nothing more to console you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in...

You mustn't ask too much of human endurance, one must be merciful.

After all, it is fairy tales the world wants. Real life is all the 'real life' we want. Give us something better in books.

It's good advice, but I expect it will be hard to follow; good advice is apt to be, I think.

No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in...

For at every stage of your civilizations there are numbers of you who put aside selfishness and dedicate their lives in service to something they see as being greater than themselves. I say you may...

It's like all those quiet people, when they do lose their tempers they lose them with a vengeance.

The craving to risk death is our last great perversion. We come from night, we go into night. Why live in night?