Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage.

Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.

When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us.

I wonder do the gods know what it feels like to be a man.

Joy is the serious business of heaven.

If one has to choose between reading the new books and reading the old, one must choose the old: not because they are necessarily better but because they contain precisely those truths of which our own age is neglectful.