“Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty – his excessive freedom.”

By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself.

Every man’s memory is his private literature.

The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.

Everyone who wants to do good to the human race always ends in universal bullying.

Human beings act in a great variety of irrational ways, but all of them seem to be capable, if given a fair chance, of making a reasonable choice in the light of available evidence. Democratic institutions can be made to work only if all concerned do their best to impart knowledge and to encourage rationality.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

Good is a product of the ethical and spiritual artistry of individuals; it cannot be mass-produced.

Which is better – to be born stupid into an intelligent society or intelligent into an insane one?

In all activities of life, the secret of efficiency lies in an ability to combine two seemingly incompatible states: a state of maximum activity and a state of maximum relaxation.

All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm.

Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence – those are the three pillars of Western prosperity.

The world is an illusion, but an illusion which we must take seriously.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.

In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or the propaganda might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies.

The older dictators fell because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles, and mysteries. Under a scientific dictatorship, education will really work’ with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.

It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent.

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

Hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.

A sadder but wiser man is a thousand times more agreeable to meet than the feller that never makes a mistake.

I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable.

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.

Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.

The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.