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.

There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants.

Men can construct a science with very few instruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could construct a science with unreliable instruments. A man might work out the whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles, but not with a handful of clay which was always falling apart into new fragments, and falling together into new combinations. A man might measure heaven and earth with a reed, but not with a growing reed.

Just the other day in the Underground I enjoyed the pleasure of offering my seat to three ladies.

Where does a wise man kick a pebble? On the beach. Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest.

We have had no good comic operas of late, because the real world has been more comic than any possible opera.

Religious unity can look like a carnival and religious liberty can look like a funeral.