If the universe is running down like a clock, the clock must have been wound up at a date which we could name if we knew it. The world, if it is to have an end in time, must have had a beginning in time.

Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them.

The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little.

The happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so.

Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art.

The vulgar mind always mistakes the exceptional for the important.

Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter.