Human beings are mercifully so constituted as to be able to conceal from themselves what they intend to do until they are well into the doing of it.

I had a glorious father, I had no father at all.

... it matters not what natural endowment a race may have if it prostitutes itself to the service of death.

Anthologies are mischievous things. Some years ago there was a rage for chemically predigested food, which was only suppressed when doctors pointed out that since human beings had been given teeth and digestive organs they had to be used or they degenerated very rapidly. Anthologies are predigested food for the brain.

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.

His smile bore the same relation to a real smile as false teeth do to real teeth.

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.