“The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.”

If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

If a man hasn’t what’s necessary to make a woman love him, it’s his fault, not hers.

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.

The Almighty can hardly be such a fool as the churches make out.

if you’d ever had a grown-up daughter you’d know that by comparison a bucking steer is easy to manage. And as to knowing what goes on inside her – well, it’s much better to pretend you’re the simple, innocent old fool she almost certainly takes you for.

They call beautiful a dress, a dog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.

The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.

It’s no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.

It is a nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.

When I look back upon the girl I was I hate myself. But I never had a chance. I’m going to bring up my daughter so that she’s free and can stand on her own feet.

I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.

We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.

Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.

Affluence means influence.

Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.

What does Christianity mean today? National Socialism is a religion. All we lack is a religious genius capable of uprooting outmoded religious practices and putting new ones in their place.

If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.

I like good strong words that mean something.

Every age that has historical status is governed by aristocracies. Aristocracy with the meaning – the best are ruling. Peoples do never govern themselves. That lunacy was concocted by liberalism. Behind its people’s sovereignty the slyest cheaters are hiding, who don’t want to be recognized.

The definition of salesmanship is the gentle art of letting the customer have it your way.

The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”