But with man the case is otherwise, in that when logic leads to any humiliating conclusion, the sole effect is to discredit logic.

As it is, plain reasoning assures me I am not indispensable to the universe: but with this reasoning, somehow, does not travel my belief.

What is man that his welfare be considered? An ape who chatters of kinship with the archangels while he very filthily digs for groundnuts. And yet I perceive that this same man is a maimed God. He is condemned under penalty to measure eternity with an hourglass and infinity with a yardstick and what is more, he very nearly does it.

The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the saying runs, old as the hills — and as immortal.

People marry through a variety of other reasons, and with varying results: but to marry for love is to invite inevitable tragedy.

The optimist sees a light at the end of the tunnel, the realist sees a train entering the tunnel, the pessimist sees a train speeding at him, hell for leather, and the machinist sees three idiots sitting on the rail track. "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true."

People must have both their dreams and their dinners in this world, and when we go out of it we must take what we find. That is all.