Of all the forms of visible otherworldliness, the Gothic is at once the most logical and the most beautiful. It reaches up magnificently—and a good half of it is palpably worthless.

Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the Unknowable. But there it sits, nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.

There is always an easy solution to every problem neat, plausible, and wrong.

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.

Love us the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienist who does not debase his theory of the healthful with a theory of the virtuous. The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices.

Never let your inferiors do you a favor - it will be extremely costly.

The most valuable of all human possessions, next to a superior and disdainful air, is the reputation of being well to do. Nothing else so neatly eases one's way through life, especially in democratic countries.

Christian theology is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is opposed to every other form of rational thinking.

The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.