I have never admitted the right of an elderly author to alter the work of a young author, even when the young author happens to be his former self.

You do not settle whether an argument is justified by merely showing that it is of some use. The distinction is not between useful and useless experiments but between barbarous and civilized behaviour. Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.

Gardening is the only unquestionably useful job.

Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and the prisoners left free to choose, the whole social fabric would fly asunder. You cannot have the argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy, why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?

Civilized society is one huge bourgeoisie: no nobleman dares now shock his greengrocer.

There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to think otherwise than in the fashion of their own period.