A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.

The position we have now reached is this: starting from the State, we try to remedy the failures of all the families, all the nurseries, all the schools, all the workshops, all the secondary institutions that once had some authority of their own. Everything is ultimately brought into the Law Courts. We are trying to stop the leak at the other end.

None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them.

If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer except slanging or silence.

When it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.

The mind that finds its way to wild places is the poet's; but the mind that never finds its way back is the lunatic's.

Liberty is the very last idea that seems to occur to anybody, in considering any political or social proposal. It is only necessary for anybody for any reason to allege any evidence of any evil in any human practice, for people instantly to suggest that the practice should be suppressed by the police.