The human race is always trying this dodge of making everything entirely easy; but the difficulty which it shifts off one thing it shifts to another.

So far as a man may be proud of a religion rooted in humility, I am very proud of my religion; I am especially proud of those parts of it that are most commonly called superstition. I am proud of being fettered by antiquated dogmas and enslaved by dead creeds (as my journalistic friends repeat with so much pertinacity), for I know very well that it is the heretical creeds that are dead, and that it is only the reasonable dogma that lives long enough to be called antiquated.

The one stream of poetry which is continually flowing is slang.

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

I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.

When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven't got any.

It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them.