Only the shallow know themselves

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.

A learned man is an idler who kills time by study

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

A life spent making mistakes is not

A man never tells you anything until you contradict him

A married man can do anything he likes if his wife doesn't mind; a widower can't be to careful

A miracle is an event which creates faith; that is the purpose and nature of miracles

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell

All my life, affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.

An Englishman does everything on principle; he fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable

Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended

Beauty is all very well at sight, but who can look at it when it has been in the house three days?

Before God we are all equally wise and equally foolish.

Cannons are not trade; they are enterprise

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books nobody can read

Common people do not pray; they only beg

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you; their tastes may not be the same

England and America are two countries separated by the same language

Englishmen never will be slaves; they are free to do whatever the Government and public opinion allow them to do

Every man over forty is a scoundrel

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

Greek scholars are privileged men; few of them know Greek, and most of them know nothing else

Hamlet's experiences simply could not have happened to a plumber

He who can does; he who cannot teaches

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

He's a devout believer in the department of witchcraft called medical science

He's a man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage

I dislike feeling at home when I'm abroad

I enjoy convalescence; it is the part that makes the illness worthwhile

I have never thought much of the courage of a lion-tamer, inside the cage he is, at least, safe from other men

I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation

I strive automatically to bring the world into harmony with my own nature

If ever I utter an oath again may my soul be blasted to eternal damnation

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience

I'm only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler, I don't like beer

Imprisonment as it exists today, is a worse crime than any committed by it's victims

In heaven an angel is nobody in particular

In literature the ambition of a novice is to acquire the literary language; the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it

Kings are not born; they are made by universal hallucination

Ladies and gentlemen are permitted to have friends in the kennel but not in the kitchen

Leave it to the coward to make a religion of his cowardice by preaching humility

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity

Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability

Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability

Men like conventions because men made them

My specialty is being right when other people are wrong

My way of joking is to tell the truth; it's the funniest joke in the world

No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition that Paul boldly set it on it's legs again in the name of Jesus

Obscenity can be found in every book except the telephone directory

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it

Put an Irishman on the spit, and you can always get another Irishman to turn him

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad

Self-denial is not a virtue; it is only the effect of prudence on rascality

Take care to get what you like, or you will end by liking what you get

The 100 per cent American is 99 per cent an idiot

The churches must learn humility as well as preach it

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules

The great advantage of a hotel is that it's a refuge from home life

The ideal love affair is one conducted by post

The liar's punishment is not the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else

The most anxious man in a prison is the warden

The only way a woman can provide for herself decently is to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not

The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business

The truth is the one thing that nobody will believe

The writer who aims at producing the platitudes which are "not for an age but for all time" has his reward in being unreadable in all ages

There are fools everywhere, even in asylums

There are not competent people enough in the world to go round; somebody must get the incompetent lawyers and doctors

There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian and the neurotic classes

There is no love sincerer than the love of food

There is not much harm in a lion; he has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no gentility

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it

There may be some doubt as to who are the best people to have in charge of children, but there can be no doubt that parents are the worst

Virtue is insufficient temptation

We are told that when Jehovah created the world he saw that it was good; what would he say now?

What God has joined together, no man shall ever put asunder; God will take care of that

What man is capable of the insane self-conceit of believing that an eternity of himself would be tolerable even to himself

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him, he calls it ferocity

When a stupid man is doing something that he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty

When you read a biography remember that the truth is never fit for publication

Why was I born with such contemporaries?

With the exception of capitalism, there is nothing so revolting as revolution

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of he human race