Idiocy is the female defect ... It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy.

An audience proves its discipline by its capacity for stillness. Those who have never practiced continuous application to an exacting process cannot settle down to simple watching; they must chew gum, they must dig the peel off their oranges, they must shift from foot to foot, from buttock to buttock.

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

I find to my astonishment that an unhappy marriage goes on being unhappy when it is over.

In England and America a beard usually means that its owner would rather be considered venerable than virile; on the continent of Europe it often means that its owner makes a special claim to virility.

art is at least in part a way of collecting information about the universe.

it is necessary that we should all have a little of the will to die, because otherwise we would find the performance of our biological duty of death too difficult.