The central idea of poetry is the idea of guessing right, like a child.

The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.

The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man, and is always talking about what he may do.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

There are arguments for atheism, and they do not depend, and never did depend, upon science. They are arguable enough, as far as they go, upon a general survey of life; only it happens to be a superficial survey of life.