Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.

I am inclined to think that one's education has been in vain if one fails to learn that most schoolmasters are idiots.

Fate stalks us with depressing monotony from womb to tomb, and, when we are least expecting it, deals us a series of crushing blows from behind.

Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely.

Do you believe in God? Perhaps you aren't old enough. The reason old people believe in God is because they've given up believing in anything else, and one can't exist without faith in something.... God is a sort of burglar. As a young man you knock him down; as an old man, you try to conciliate him because he may knock you down. Moral: don't grow old.

The English public doesn't really like Shakespeare; it prefers football.

An author should be delighted, not annoyed when he hears himself persistently misquoted. He could receive no higher compliment. It proves that the world has frequent and urgent need of his thoughts and will rather change the manner in which he expresses them than do without the things expressed.