Thus, I blush to add, you can not be a philosopher and a good man, though you may be a philosopher and a great one.

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

An index is a great leveller.

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Audacious ribald: your laughter will finish in hideous boredom before morning.

I do not, like the Fundamentalists, believe that creation stopped six thousand years ago after a week of hard work. Creation is going on all the time.

It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's to keep unmarried as long as he can.