The Englishman wants to be recognized as a gentleman, or as some other suitable species of human being; the American wants to be considered a good guy.

There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave.

In the history of mankind, fanaticism has caused more harm than vice.

Along with being forever on the move, one is forever in a hurry, leaving things inadvertently behind-friend or fishing tackle, old raincoat or old allegiance.

A perfect conversation would run much less to brilliant sentences than to unfinished ones.

On a very rough-and-ready basis we might define an eccentric as a man who is a law unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is, insists on laying it down to others. An eccentric puts ice cream on steak simply because he likes it; should a crank do so, he would endow the act with moral grandeur and straightaway denounce as sinners (or reactionaries) all who failed to follow suit. Cranks, at their most familiar, are a sort of peevish prophets, and it's not enough that they should be in the right; others must also be in the wrong.

The closer and more confidential our relationship with someone, the less we are entitled to ask about what we are not voluntarily told.