I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad, except himself.

As an explanation of the world materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has the quality of a madman's arguments; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out.

Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.

The classes that wash most are those that work least.

Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve looking after other people's property.

Happiness is not only a hope, but also in some strange manner a memory ... we are all kings in exile.

There are many books which we think we have read when we have not. There are, at least, many that we think we remember when we do not. An original picture was, perhaps, imprinted upon the brain, but it has changed with our own changing minds. We only remember our remembrance.