I ought to reflect again and again, and yet again, that the beings that I have to steer are just as inevitable in the scheme of evolution as I am myself; have just as much right to be themselves as I am entitled to; and they all deserve from me as much sympathy as I give to myself.

There is no magic method of beginning... Take hold of your nerves, and jump.

The people who live in the past must yield to the people who live in the future. Otherwise the world would begin to turn the other way round.

The man who begins to go to bed forty minutes before he opens his bedroom door is bored; that is to say, he is not living.

Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism.

I know people who read and read, and for all the good it does them, they might as well cut bread and butter. Unless you give at least 45 minutes of careful, fatiguing reflection upon what you are reading, your minutes are chiefly wasted.

The saxophone is the embodied spirit of beer.