There are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores. When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly proved himself prosaic.

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.

The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.

I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification.

There is nothing harder to learn than painting and nothing which most people take less trouble about learning.

My life is passed in making bad jokes and seeing them turn into true prophecies.