As an explanation of the world materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has the quality of a madman's arguments; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out.

A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.

The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world.

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

Nine times out of ten it is the coarse word that condemns an evil, and the refined word that excuses it.

If the common man in the past had a grave respect for property, it may conceivably have been because he sometimes had some of his own.

One can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place.