Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when Joy is the fundamental thing in him, and Grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive state of mind; Praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; Joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live? Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this, that by its creed Joy becomes something gigantic, and Sadness something special and small.

The Catholic Church is like a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.

If the devil tells you something is too fearful to look at, look at it. If he says something is too terrible to hear, hear it. If you think some truth unbearable, bear it.

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

A third-class carriage is a community, while a first-class carriage is a place of wild hermits.

War is not the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.