We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.

I believe your own accent is inimitable, though I shall practice it in my bath.

Every time a man knocks on a brothel door, he is really knocking for God

Now it has appeared to me unfair that humanity should be engaged perpetually in calling all those things bad which have been good enough to make other things better, in everlastingly kicking down the ladder by which it has climbed. It has appeared to me that progress should be something else besides a continual parricide; therefore I have investigated the dust-heaps of humanity, and found a treasure in all of them. I have found that humanity is not incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into the sea.

Nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze.

The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed.

Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made an essential and godliness is regarded as an offence.