Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before.

Such professions as the soldier and the lawyer ... give ample opportunity for crimes but not much for mere illusions. ... If you have lost a battle you cannot believe you have won it; if your client is hanged you cannot pretend that you have gotten him off.

This is the perpetual and pitiful tragedy of the practical man in practical affairs. He always begins with a flourish of contempt for what he calls theorizing and what people who can do it call thinking. He will not wait for logic-that is, in the most exact sense, he will not listen to reason. It will therefore appear to him an idle and ineffectual proceeding to say that there is a reason for his present failure. Nevertheless, it may be well to say it, and to try and make it clear even to him.

Progress is the mother of all problems.

One must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly.

Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.