If we are bound to improve, we need not trouble to improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the best of all reasons for not being a progressive.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

I have argued with him on almost every subject in the world, and we have always been on opposite sides, without affectation or animosity... It is necessary to disagree with him as much as I do, in order to admire him as I do; and I am proud of him as a foe even more than as a friend.

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

Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself.

It is the friction of two spiritual things, of tradition and invention, or of substance and symbol, from which the mind takes fire. The creeds condemned as complex have something like the secret of sex; they can breed thoughts.

The one stream of poetry which is continually flowing is slang.