A man's interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not yet full;so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child again.

Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.

The chief objection to playing wind instruments is that it prolongs the life of the player.

The test to which all methods of treatment are finally brought is whether they are lucrative to doctors or not.

It is the inefficiency and sham of ... our schools ... that save us from being dashed on the rocks of false doctrine instead of drifting down the midstream of mere ignorance.

Obedience simulates subordination as fear of the police simulates honesty.

Eternal is the fact that the human creature born in Ireland and brought up in its air is Irish. I have lived for twenty years in Ireland and for seventy-two in England; but the twenty came first and in Britain I am still a foreigner and shall die one.