“In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.”

The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one’s opinion but rather to know it.

There are certain persons for whom pure Truth is a poison.

People are what you make them. A scornful look turns into a complete fool a man of average intelligence.

Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.

If you value a man’s regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper – and despise it.

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity – romantic love and gunpowder.

Modesty and unselfishness – these are the virtues which men praise – and pass by.

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.

A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.

The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author’s life.

Business is a combination of war and sport.

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such. All leaders whose fitness is questioned are clearly lacking in force.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us.

To be witty is not enough. One must possess sufficient wit to avoid having too much of it.

When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough.

Immensely grateful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed.

Is it astonishing that, like children trying to catch smoke by closing their hands, philosophers so often see the object they would grasp fly before them?

Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.

We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.

Scatter good will and love and prayers all around, everywhere, and you will be astonished, not only by what it does for other people, but how it comes back to you in generous abundance.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

What an astonishing thing a book is.