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.

Modern science is necessarily a double-edged tool, a tool that cuts both ways. ... There is no doubt that a Zeppelin is a wonderful thing; but that did not prevent it from becoming a horrible thing.

Aristocracy: government by the badly educated.

If we could destroy custom at a blow and see the stars as a child sees them, we should need no other apocalypse.

Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.

At the back of our brains is a blaze of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder.

I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.