The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent as the impulse to sexual love - almost as violent and much more mischievous.

Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs.

Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people's happiness.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one's never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.

The proper study of mankind is books.

Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced...

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it.

The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is total anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency.

I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.

Chastity - the most unnatural of all the sexual perversions.

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm.

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.

There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.