I might inform those humanitarians who have a nightmare of new and needless babies (for some humanitarians have that sort of horror of humanity) that if the recent decline in the birth-rate were continued for a certain time, it might end in there being no babies at all; which would console them very much.

We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one's life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.

The Catholic Church is the only thing that saves man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.

In real life the people who are most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.

The real pleasure-seeking is the combination of luxury and austerity in such a way that the luxury can really be felt.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

To be simple is the best thing in the world; to be modest is the next best thing. I am not sure about being quiet.