Only friendliness produces friendship. And we must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces friendliness.

Men spoke much in my boyhood about restricted or ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it's a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

Boys like romantic [fairy] tales; but babies like realistic tales - because they find them romantic...This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost prenatal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.

There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.

The truth is that there are no things for which men will make such herculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy.

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down... Why do we laugh? Because it is a grave religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.