Your next-door neighbor is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of a piano; he is a dispute about a party wall; he is drains that are worse than yours, or roses that are better than yours.

My brain and this world don't fit each other; and there's an end of it.

Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else.

The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid.

London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down... Why do we laugh? Because it is a grave religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

The great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad.