In any close society it is more urgent to restrain others than to be free oneself. Hence the tendency for the central authority to absorb and supersede such as are local or delegated.

In this world we must either institute conventional forms of expression or else pretend that we have nothing to express; the choice lies between a mask and a figleaf.

Gnomic wisdom, however, is notoriously polychrome, and proverbs depend for their truth entirely on the occasion they are applied to. Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

All language is rhetorical, and even the senses are poets.

By nature's kindly disposition most questions which it is beyond a man's power to answer do not occur to him at all.

To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.

That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions, and were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.