Champagne had the taste of an apple peeled with a steel knife.

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

Every gain made by individuals or society is almost instantly taken for granted.

Real progress is progress in charity, all other advances being secondary thereto.

Where beauty is worshipped for beauty's sake as a goddess, independent of and superior to morality and philosophy, the most horrible putrefaction is apt to set in. The lives of the aesthetes are the far from edifying commentary on the religion of beauty.

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.

It is natural to believe in God when you're alone-- quite alone, in the night, thinking about death.