Against a dark sky all flowers look like fireworks. There is something strange about them, at once vivid and secret, like flowers traced in fire in the phantasmal garden of a witch.

Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right.

An enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful. As I have said above, these defences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form of appeals to physical science. And of all the forms in which science, or pseudo-science, has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there is none so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races.

Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

It is human to err; and the only final and deadly error, among all our errors, is denying that we have ever erred.

Mysticism keeps mankind sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.

If prosperity is regarded as the reward of virtue it will be regarded as the symptom of virtue.