The medieval doctors of divinity who did not pretend to settle how many angels could dance on the point of a needle cut a very poor figure as far as romantic credulity is concerned beside the modern physicists who have settled to the billionth of a millimetre every movement and position in the dance of the electrons. Not for worlds would I question the precise accuracy of these calculations or the existence of electrons (whatever they may be). The fate of Joan is a warning to me against such heresy.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances.

No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot.

Put an Irishman on the spit and you can always get another Irishman to turn him.

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?

A man who has no office to go, to I don't care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception.

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.