“The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.”

We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers.

We cannot learn to love other tourists,-the laws of nature forbid it,-but, meditating soberly on the impossibility of their loving us, we may reach some common platform of tolerance, some common exchange of recognition and amenity.

If history in the making be a fluid thing, it swiftly crystallizes.

I do strive to think well of my fellow man, but no amount of striving can give me confidence in the wisdom of a congressional vote.

An historian without political passions is as rare as a wasp without a sting.

Life is so full of miseries, minor and major; they press so close upon us at every step of the way, that it is hardly worthwhile to call one another’s attention to their presence.

The necessity of knowing a little about a great many things is the most grievous burden of our day. It deprives us of leisure on the one hand, and of scholarship on the other.

There is nothing in the world so incomprehensible as the joke we do not see.

Economics and ethics have little in common.

The pitfall of the feminist is the belief that the interests of men and women can ever be severed; that what brings sufferings to the one can leave the other unscathed.

A real dog, beloved and therefore pampered by his mistress, is a lamentable spectacle. He suffers from fatty degeneration of his moral being.

the most comfortable characteristic of the period [1775-1825], and the one which incites our deepest envy, is the universal willingness to accept a good purpose as a substitute for good work.

When the contemplative mind is a French mind, it is content, for the most part, to contemplate France. When the contemplative mind is an English mind, it is liable to be seized at any moment by an importunate desire to contemplate Morocco or Labrador.

It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.

real letter-writing … is founded on a need as old and as young as humanity itself, the need that one human being has of another.

History is not written in the interests of morality.

The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.

Indifference to one’s own faith is no proof of tolerance. Loyalty to one’s own is part of a larger loyalty to faith generally.

I knew the mass of men conceal’d Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal’d They would by other men be met With blank indifference.

It is – last stage of all When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

In a world where insensitivity and indifference are overrated. Don’t lose faith in love and warmth. You may feel lost and worn out, but the most magical and the richest place will always be a kind heart.

Indifferentism is the worst kind of disease that can affect people.

Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference.