There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.

While economics is about how people make choice, sociology is about how they don't have any choice to make.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading

Every housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel.

There is something feeble, and a little contemptible, about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought, and he therefore cannot carry his own reflection to any logical conclusion.