if you are perfectly willing to shock an individual verbally, the next thing you will be doing is to shock him practically.

Successful socialism depends on the perfectibility of man. Unless all, or nearly all, men are high-minded and clear-sighted, it isbound to be a rotten failure in any but a physical sense. Even through it is altruism, socialism means materialism. You can guarantee the things of the body to every one, but you cannot guarantee the things of the spirit to every one; you can guarantee only that the opportunity to seek them shall not be denied to any one who chooses to seek them.

Nothing makes people so worthy of compliments as receiving them. One is more delightful for being told one is delightful-just as one is more angry for being told one is angry.

Simplicity is an acquired taste. Mankind, left free, instinctively complicates life.

if you are perfectly willing to shock an individual verbally, the next thing you will be doing is to shock him practically.

Civilization is merely an advance in taste: accepting, all the time, nicer things, and rejecting nasty ones.

You can bear anything if it is not your fault.