A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it.

Most Americans ... have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne.

Science is the study of the admitted laws of existence, which cannot prove a universal negative about whether those laws could ever be suspended by something admittedly above them. It is as if we were to say that a lawyer was so deeply learned in the American Constitution that he knew there could never be a revolution in America.

No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.

The great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look like gifts.

The evolutionists seem to know everything about the missing link except the fact that it is missing.

It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian.