What a man is depends on his character; but what he does, and what we think of what he does, depends on his circumstances.

I have to live for others and not for myself: that's middle-class morality.

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

I find it easy to forgive the man who invented a devilish instrument like dynamite, but how can one ever forgive the diabolical mind that invented the Nobel Prize in Literature?

Englishmen never will be slaves; they are free to do whatever the government and public opinion allow them.

With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his. . . . It would positively be a relief to me to dig him up and throw stones at him.