After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

We lie to ourselves in order that we may still have the excuse of ignorance, the alibi of stupidity and incomprehension, possessing which we can continue with a good conscience to commit and tolerate the most monstrous crimes.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.

You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. . . . Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.

I'd rather be myself," he said. "Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.

Reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays.