A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.

My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned...

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by...

At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world.

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn’t really hurt.

CHARTERIS [unfolding his arms in terror] No, please. Dont. As a philosopher, it’s my business to tell other people the truth; but it’s not their business to tell it to me. I dont like it:...

You see things; you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?

Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity, and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.

Heaven is the most angelically dull place in all creation

The American white relegates the black to the rank of shoeshine boy; and he concludes from this that the black is good for nothing but shining shoes.

Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me.

I’m not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you.

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does NOT triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

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...

Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that...

Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error.

Loyalty in a critic is corruption.

But I cant stand saying one thing when everyone knows I mean another. Whats the use in such hypocrisy? If people arrange the world that way for women, theres no good pretending it’s arranged the...

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

MRS PEARCE. Mr Higgins: youre tempting the girl. It’s not right. She should think of the future.HIGGINS. At her age! Nonsense! Time enough to think of the future when you havnt any future to think...

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

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?