“Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.”
“Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.”
“The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.”
“All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.”
“There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.”
“A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.”
“Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.”
“I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry.”
“The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.”
“People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.”
“All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.”
“People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.”
“A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.”
“What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, ''I bet that my Redeemer liveth.''”
“One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.”
“Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.”
“To himself everyone is an immortal. He may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.”
“We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself.”
“The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.”
“The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.”
“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.”
“It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.”
“Everyone should keep a mental wastepaper basket, and the older he grows, the more things will he promptly consign to it.”
“It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy -- but he who has shown the better temper.”
“He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us.”
“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.”
“Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.”
“I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.”
“Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderated use rather than total abstinence.”
“A lawyers dream of heaven; every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.”