Did St. Francis preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.

The case against religion is the responsibility of God for the sufferings of mankind, which makes it impossible to believe the good things said about Him in the Bible, and consequently to believe anything it says about Him.

There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.

Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself.

I take it as a prime cause of the present confusion of society that it is too sickly and too doubtful to use pleasure frankly as a test of value.

All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.

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