“The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.”

Eclecticism. Every truth is so true that any truth must be false.

One said of suicide, As long as one has brains one should not blow them out. And another answered, But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.

Few people would not be the worse for complete sincerity.

It is good to know what a man is, and also what the world takes him for. But you do not understand him until you have learnt how he understands himself.

We say that a girl with her doll anticipates the mother. It is more true, perhaps, that most mothers are still but children with playthings.

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.

The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to care.

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct.

The man whose nature is such that by one path alone his chief desire will reach consummation will try to find it on that path, whatever it may be, and whatever the world thinks of it; and if he does not, he is contemptible.

Reason teaches us that what is good is good for something, and that what is good for nothing is not good at all.

Another occupation might have been better.

I will begin with the self-styled “Christian” party, who profess to base their morality on the New Testament. But whether it is really more Christian to follow or to ignore the teachings of the Gospels I shall not discuss.

The one self- knowledge worth having is to know one’s own mind.

Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived. It is a pity that this is still the only knowledge of their wives at which some men seem to arrive.

An aphorism is true where it has fixed the impression of a genuine experience.

The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind.

I don’t want the world to give me anything for my books except money enough to save me from the temptation to write only for money.

I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit, I suppose it is some taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths.

One is tempted to turn away with a grimace and close one’s mind: this is a temptation one must resist.

If human nature felt no temptation to take a chance there might not be much investment merely as a result of cold calculation.

With all the travel we’re doing to cold-weather cities, your mind definitely starts to wander. It gets you away from the game. Even when you arrive in a city, you’re tempted to just sit in your hotel and rest. Sometimes it’s nice to just get out and walk around, to see what’s there.

Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object.

On this narrow planet, we have only the choice between two unknown worlds. One of them tempts us – ah! what a dream, to live in that! – the other stifles us at the first breath.