Why do all the clerks and navvies in the railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket for that place they will reach. It is because after they have passed Sloane Square they know that the next station must be Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! oh, their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next station were unaccountably Baker Street!

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.

The coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church

Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.

Coincidence is a spiritual pun.

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

The Catholic Church is like a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.