Any of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of the vices that do not attract us.

The telephone is the greatest nuisance among conveniences, the greatest convenience among nuisances.

When the last Puritan has disappeared from the earth, the man of science will take his place as a killjoy, and we shall be given the same old advice but for different reasons.

Cut quarrels out of literature, and you will have very little history or drama or fiction or epic poetry left.

One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge.

[History is] the story of the magnificent rear-guard action fought during several thousand years by dogma against curiosity.

I sometimes suspect that half our difficulties are imaginary and that if we kept quiet about them they would disappear.