[Chess] is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time.

Women have been a ghastly nuisance in my life.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

The fact is that the intrinsic worth of the book, play or whatever the author is trying to sell is the least, last factor in the the whole transaction.

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.

Pothinus: "Is it possible that Caesar, the conqueror of the world, has time to occupy himself with such a trifle as our taxes?" Caesar: "My friend, taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world.

The American Constitution, one of the few modern political documents drawn up by men who were forced by the sternest circumstances to think out what they really had to face, instead of chopping logic in a university classroom.