Whatever else may be said of man, this one thing is clear: He is not what he is capable of being.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

If the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die.

Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards.

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.

A radical generally meant a man who thought he could somehow pull up the root without affecting the flower. A conservative generally meant a man who wanted to conserve everything except his own reason for conserving anything.

A tragedy means always a mans struggle with that which is stronger than man.

It is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer.

Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man's ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this, that by its creed Joy becomes something gigantic, and Sadness something special and small.