The whole pleasure of marriage is that it is a perpetual crisis.

If a man only likes victory he must always come late for the battle.

The prophet and the quack are alike admired for a generation, and admired for the wrong reasons.

Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If in your bold creative way you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe.

An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one. The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and uncanny.

The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

Forms of expression always appear turgid to those who do not share the emotions they represent.