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

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.

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

Every one knows about the young man who falls in love with the chorus-girl because she can kick his hat off, and his sister's friends can't or won't. But the youth who marries her, expecting that all her departures from convention will be as agile or as delightful to him as that, is still the classic example of folly.

What passes for an original opinion is, generally, merely an original phrase. Old lamps for new - yes; but it is always the same oil in the lamp.

Frenchwomen could not dress like Englishwomen without conviction of sin.

The insidiousness of science lies in its claim to be not a subject, but a method.