By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.

If, therefore, nonsense is really to be the literature of the future, it must have its own version of the Cosmos to offer; the world must not only be tragic, romantic, and religious, it must be nonsensical also.

A good joke is the closest thing we have to divine revelation.

We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.

If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.

In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it.

The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad.