Love, the one supreme, unceasing source of human felicity, the one sole joy which lifts the whole mortal existence into the empyrean, was by it [Christianity] degraded into the mere mechanical action of reproduction.

No great talker ever did any great thing yet, in this world.

It is quite easy for stupid people to be happy; they believe in fables, and they trot on in a beaten track like a horse on a tramway.

Scandals are like dandelion seeds--they are arrow-headed, and stick where they fall, and bring forth and multiply fourfold.

If all feeling for grace and beauty were not extinguished in the mass of mankind at the actual moment, such a method of locomotion as cycling could never have found acceptance; no man or woman with the slightest aesthetic sense could assume the ludicrous position necessary for it.

Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others.

The radical defect in Christianity is that it tried to win the world by a bribe, and it has become a nullity.