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?

Literature is like any other trade; you will never sell anything unless you go to the right shop.

Why not give Christianity a trial?

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!

A man's interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not yet full;so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child again.

After all, the wrong road always leads somewhere.

The whole strength of England lies in the fact that the enormous majority of the English people are snobs.