All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.
[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one’s own, but one does not like anyone else’s.
Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.
The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
It has been said that although God cannot alter the past, historians can –it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.
To do great work one must be very idle as well as very industrious.
Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.
Truth might be heroic, but it was not within the range of practical domestic politics.
There are orphanages,” he exclaimed to himself, “for children who have lost their parents–oh! why, why, why, are there no harbours of refuge for grown men who have not yet lost them?
Parents are the last people on Earth who ought to have children.
Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime
If people who are in a difficulty will only do the first little reasonable thing which they can clearly recognize as reasonable, they will always find the next step more easy both to see and take.
Every man’s work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
We all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.
I have never written on any subject unless I believed that the authorities on it were hopelessly wrong.
Peter remained on friendly terms with Christ notwithstanding Christ’s having healed his mother-in-law.
Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name.
A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide.
A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
We are not won by arguments that we can analyze but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.
We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them.
The world is naturally averse to all truth it sees or hears but swallows nonsense and a lie with greediness and gluttony.
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.
Logic is like the sword–those who appeal to it shall perish by it.
The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too.
Mention but the word “divinity,” and our sense of the divine is clouded.
Theist and atheist: The fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.
People are lucky and unlucky … according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you but he will make a fool of himself too.
I keep my books at the British Museum and at Mudies.
The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
Books should be tried by a judge and jury as though they were crimes.
I can generally bear the separation but I don’t like the leave-taking.
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted and at seeing it practised.
Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.
Neither have they hearts to stay Nor wit enough to run away.
Every one should keep a mental wastepaper basket and the older he grows the more things he will consign to it-torn up to irrecoverable tatters.
It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.
The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.
When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.
If life must not be taken too seriously – then so neither must death.
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
The tendency of modern science is to reduce proof to absurdity by continually reducing absurdity to proof.
There is one thing certain namely that we can have nothing certain therefore it is not certain that we can have nothing certain.
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
You can do very little with faith but you can do nothing without it.
Whatso’er we perpetrate We do but row we are steered by fate.
A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.
All animals except man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.
It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.
An apology for the Devil – it must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
It has been said that though God cannot alter the past historians can – it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.
To live is like to love: all reason is against it and all healthy instinct is for it.
The public do not know enough to be experts yet know enough to decide between them.
A lawyer’s dream of heaven – every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
To live is like to love – all reason is against it and all healthy instinct for it.
Man unlike the animal has never learned that the sole purpose of life is to enjoy it.
To live is like to love – all reason is against it and all healthy instinct for it.
Any fool can tell the truth but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
I reckon being ill is one of the greatest pleasures of life provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.
When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.
What runs through a person like water through a sieve.
Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.
The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you but he will make a fool of himself too.
All philosophies if you ride them home are nonsense but some are greater nonsense than others.
The advantage of doing one’s praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
All progress is based upon the universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
People are lucky and unlucky … according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
No matter how ill we may be nor how low we may have fallen we should not change identity with any other person.
Our self-conceit sustains and always must sustain us.
The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us like the Kingdom of Heaven rather than without.
All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.
You can do very little with faith but you can do nothing without it.
One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten and to leave off fighting at once.
We grow weary of those things (and perhaps soonest) which we most desire.
Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden not silence.
People care more about being thought to have good taste than about being thought either good clever or amiable.
Our latest moment is always our supreme moment. Five minutes delay in dinner now is more important than a great sorrow ten years gone.
Loyalty is still the same Whether it win or lose the game True as a dial to the sun Although it be not shined upon.
To put one’s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.
It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable grounds.
A virtue to be serviceable must like gold be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.
Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things.
A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.
Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.
Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.
The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.
A physician’s physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric’s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.
Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficacious I do not know.
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.
Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
A man’s friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage – but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.
Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.
To live is like to love – all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.