The choice of a topic which will bear analysis and support enthusiasm, is essential to the enjoyment of conversation.

People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations.

The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without them.

The worst in life, we are told, is compatible with the best in art. So too the worst in life is compatible with the best in humour.

The gospel of cheerfulness, I had almost said the gospel of amusement, is preached by people who lack experience to people who lack vitality. There is a vague impression that the world would be a good world if it were only happy, that it would be happy if it were amused, and that it would be amused if plenty of artificial recreation - that recreation for which we are now told every community stands responsible - were provided for its entertainment.

It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.

An historian without political passions is as rare as a wasp without a sting.