It is the custom when praising a Russian writer to do so at the expense of all other Russian writers.

When people complain of the decay of manners they have in mind not the impudent abbreviations of the crowd, but the decline in bowing and scraping and in speaking of one's employer as "the master." What the rich mean by the good manners of the poor is usually not civility, but servility.

Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys, showing that nothing else in life need to be taken seriously, and that Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the few occasions on which men become entirely alive.

We forget that Socrates was famed for wisdom not because he was omniscient but because he realized at the age of seventy that he still knew nothing.

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.

It is doubtful if even experience of riches and success is as intense among those who have experienced nothing else as among those who have also experienced poverty and failure. There is little romance in wealth to those who have been born wealthy and whose families have been wealthy for generations.

It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.