Very many people spend money in ways quite different from those that their natural tastes would enjoin, merely because the respect of their neighbors depends upon their possession of a good car and their ability to give good dinners. As a matter of fact, any man who can obviously afford a car but genuinely prefers travels or a good library will in the end be much more respected than if he behaved exactly like everyone else.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

To a modern mind, it is difficult to feel enthusiastic about a virtuous life if nothing is going to be achieved by it.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them.

There is no difference between someone who eats too little and sees Heaven and someone who drinks too much and sees snakes.

We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.

The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.