The right to know is like the right to live. It is fundamental and unconditional in its assumption that knowledge, like life, is a desirable thing.

Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.

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

Youth, what a pity to waste it on the young.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.

I find that socialism is often misunderstood by its least intelligent supporters and opponents to mean simply unrestrained indulgence of our natural propensity to heave bricks at respectable persons.

There is nothing on earth more exquisite than a bonny book, with well-placed columns of rich black writing in beautiful borders, and illuminated pictures cunningly inset. But nowadays, instead of looking at books, people read them. A book might as well be one of those orders for bacon and bran.