There is no great harm in the theorist who makes up a new theory to fit a new event. But the theorist who starts with a false theory and then sees everything as making it come true is the most dangerous enemy of human reason.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

Those who leave the tradition of truth do not escape into something which we call Freedom. They only escape into something else, which we call Fashion.

There are two kinds of rebellion. The first is one in which the slave demands something that the tyrant has got. The second is one in which he demands something that the tyrant has not got.

To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man.

There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both, though in various ways, a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives.

If Christianity should happen to be true - that is to say, if its God is the real God of the universe - then defending it may mean talking about anything and everything.