I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.

All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.

Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.

The childhood of the individual and the race is full of fears, and panic-stricken attempts to avert what is feared by placating the gods with painful sacrifices.

A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.

Mozart eliminates the idea of haste from life. His airs could not lag as they make their journey through the listener's attention; they are not the right shape for loitering. But it is as true that they never rush, they are never headlong or helter-skelter, they splash no mud, they raise no dust.

It is not possible that a just God should forgive people who are wicked because another person who was good endured agony by being nailed to a cross.