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

Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.

Art is not a luxury, but a necessity.

one of Mr. [Thomas] Hardy's ancestors must have married a weeping willow. There are pages and pages in his collected poems which are simply plain narratives in ballad form of how an unenjoyable time was had by all.

There is nothing rarer than a man who can be trusted never to throw away happiness, however eagerly he sometimes grasps it. In history we are as frequently interested in our own doom.

All disgrace smells alike. Differences in ruin are only matters of degree.

If the whole human race lay in one grave, the epitaph on its headstone might well be: 'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'