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

A nation that has nothing but its amusements will not be amused for long.

I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story. If there was no murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I dismissed the story as tea-table twaddle, which it often really was.

The men of the East may spell the stars, And times and triumphs mark, But the men signed of the cross of Christ Go gaily in the dark.

Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake.

Man is always something worse or something better than an animal; and a mere argument from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkeness - or so good as drink.

It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.