Where does a wise man kick a pebble? On the beach. Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest.

People decided that it was impossible to achieve any of the good of Socialism, but they comforted themselves by achieving all the bad.

So far as a man may be proud of a religion rooted in humility, I am very proud of my religion; I am especially proud of those parts of it that are most commonly called superstition. I am proud of being fettered by antiquated dogmas and enslaved by dead creeds (as my journalistic friends repeat with so much pertinacity), for I know very well that it is the heretical creeds that are dead, and that it is only the reasonable dogma that lives long enough to be called antiquated.

The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms.

(Tradition) is the democracy of the dead.

The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before.

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