I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.

The highest and noblest thing that history can be is a good story.

I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event.

Women are the only realists; their whole object in life is to pit their realism against the extravagant, excessive, and occasionally drunken idealism of men.

It is better to speak wisdom foolishly like the saints than to speak folly wisely like the deans.

The lunatic is the man who lives in a small world but thinks it is a large one; he is the man who lives in a tenth of the truth, and thinks it is the whole. The madman cannot conceive any cosmos outside a certain tale or conspiracy or vision.

A sober man may become a drunkard through being a coward. A brave man may become a coward through being a drunkard.