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

Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.

The late F. W. H. Myers used to tell how he asked a man at a dinner table what he thought would happen to him when he died. The man tried to ignore the question, but, on being pressed, replied: "Oh well, I suppose I shall inherit eternal bliss, but I wish you wouldn't talk about such unpleasant subjects."

There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.

I often long to . . . give up my life to love of my neighbour. This is really a temptation.

Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.