The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.

I do not know much about Mohammed or Mohammedanism. I do not take the Koran to bed with me every night. But, if I did on some one particular night, there is one sense at least in which I know what I should not find there. I apprehend that I should not find the work abounding in strong encouragements to the worship of idols; that the praises of polytheism would not be loudly sung; that the character of Mohammed would not be subjected to anything resembling hatred and derision; and that the great modern doctrine of the unimportance of religion would not be needlessly emphasised.

Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.

Wherever there is animal worship, there is human sacrifice.

Why be something to everybody when you can be everything to somebody?

Realism is simply Romanticism that has lost its reason...that is its reason for existing.