Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor, upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right

If Men and Women took their Pleasures as noisily as the Cats, what Londoner could ever hope to sleep of nights?

The people who kill and torture and tell lies in the name of their sacred causes, these are never the publicans and the sinners. No, they're the virtuous, respectable men, who have the finest feelings, the best brains, the noblest ideals.

Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone. A chronic fear of being slighted made him avoid his equals, made him stand, where his inferiors were concerned, self-consciously on his dignity.

Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons.

The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.