The history of mankind for the last four centuries is rather like that of an imprisoned sleeper, stirring clumsily and uneasily while the prison that restrains and shelters him catches fire, not waking but incorporating the crackling and warmth of the fire with ancient and incongruous dreams, than like that of a man consciously awake to danger and opportunity.

Bah! The thing is not a nose at all, but a bit of primordial chaos clapped on to my face.

Leaders should lead as far as they can and then vanish. Their ashes should not choke the fire they have lit.

A federation of all humanity, together with a sufficient measure of social justice, to ensure health, education, and a rough equality of opportunity to most of the children born into the world, would mean such a release and increase of human energy as to open a new phase in human history.

once you lose yourself, you have two choices: find the person you used to be, or lose that person completely.

All four Gospels agree in giving us a picture of a very definite personality. One is obliged to say, "Here was a man. This could not have been invented.

What on earth would a man do with himself, if something did not stand in his way?