He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity to admire a pelican.

The sort of man who admires Italian art while despising Italian religion is a tourist and a cad.

The modern mind will accept nothing on authority, but will accept anything on no authority. Say that the Bible or the Pope says so and it will be dismissed without further examination. But preface your remark with "I think I heard somewhere," or, try but fail to remember the name of some professor who might have said "such-and-such," and it will be immediately accepted as an unshakable fact.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

For Tommy, on that hot and empty afternoon, was in a state of mind in which grown-up people go away and write books about their whole world, and stories about what it is like to be married, and plays about the important problems of modern times. Tommy, being only ten years old, was not able to do harm on this large and handsome scale.

The modern world seems to have no notion of preserving different things side by side, of allowing its proper and proportionate place to each, of saving the whole varied heritage of culture. It has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything.

What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of Scrooge and the body of Cratchit are my business.