We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.

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

Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all... As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.

Somehow one can never manage to be an atheist.

Marxism: The theory that all the important things in history are rooted in an economic motive, that history is a science, a science of the search for food.

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to severn strode, / The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

It seems to me,' said the other, 'That you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis.' By George!' said Syme facing round and looking at him, 'What a clever chap you are!