By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions and tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled 'good' or 'bad'...By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.

The fact is that certain themes cannot be celebrated in words, and tyranny is one of them. No one ever wrote a good book in praise of the Inquisition.

A humanitarian is always a hypocrite.

It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

Snobbishness, like hypocrisy, is a check upon behaviour whose value from a social point of view has been underrated.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

The only imaginative prose writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past.