There is no morality by instinct. There is no social salvation in the end without taking thought; without mastery of logic and application of logic to human experience.

The only glory most of us have to hope for is the glory of being normal.

It is not permissible to lie merely to save one's face. But it is sometimes permissible to lie to save another person's face.

When the temperamental and unconventional people are not mere plagiarists of dead eccentrics, they lack, in almost every case, thehistoric sense.

... if we have a dollar to spend on some wild excess, we shall spend it on a book, not on asparagus out of season.

Society, by insisting on conventions, has merely insisted on certain convenient signs by which we may know that a man is considering, in daily life, the comfort of other people.

... if a person is to be unconventional, he must be amusing or he is intolerable: for, in the nature of the case, he guarantees you nothing but amusement. He does not guarantee you any of the little amenities by which society has assured itself that, if it must go to sleep, it will at least sleep in a comfortable chair.