The only power a god can teach is the power of doing without happiness.

A book is like a child: it is easier to bring it into the world than to control it when it is launched there.

What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn’t come every day.

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

Laws, religions, creeds, and systems of ethics, instead of making society better than its best unit, make it worse than its average unit, because they are never up to date.

The notion that the colonel need be a better man than the private is as confused as the notion that the keystone need be stronger than the coping stone.

All religions begin with a revolt against morality, and perish when morality conquers them.