There cannot be a personal God without a pessimistic religion. As soon as there is a personal God he is a disappointing God.

We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.

It is a mistake to expect good work from expatriates for it is not what they do that matters but what they are not doing.

English Law: where there are two alternatives: one intelligent, one stupid; one attractive, one vulgar; one noble, one ape-like; one serious and sincere, one undignified and false; one far-sighted, one short; EVERYBODY will INVARIABLY choose the latter.

I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.

In my religion, there would be no exclusive doctrine; all would be love, poetry, and doubt.

If our elaborate and dominating bodies are given us to be denied at every turn, if our nature is always wrong and wicked, how ineffectual we are; like fishes not meant to swim.