I can think of no other edifice constructed by man as altruistic as a lighthouse. They were built only to serve.

They tell me that So-and-So, who does not write prefaces, is no charlatan. Well, I am. I first caught the ear of the British public on a cart in Hyde Park, to the blaring of brass bands,and this . . . because . . . I am a natural-born mountebank.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

The nation's morals are like its teeth: the more decayed they are the more it hurts to touch them.

I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time.... What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.