Most remarks that are worth making are commonplace remarks. The things that makes them worth saying is that we really mean them.

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.

There are two sorts of curiosity – the momentary and the permanent. The momentary is concerned with the odd appearance on the surface of things. The permanent is attracted by the amazing and consecutive life...

The days on which one has been the most inquisitive are among the days on which one has been happiest.

Were I a philosopher, I should write a philosophy of toys, showing that nothing else in life need to be taken seriously, and that Christmas Day in the company of children is one of the...

One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge

Friendship will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long.

Most of us believe in trying to make other people happy only if they can be happy in ways which we approve.

Most of us can remember a time when a birthday – especially if it was one’s own – brightened the world as if a second sun has risen.

It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to suffering, but only to one’s own suffering

I sometimes suspect that half our difficulties are imaginary and that if we kept quiet about them they would disappear.

No doubt there are other important things in life besides conflict, but there are not many other things so inevitably interesting. The very saints interest us most when we think of them as enganged in...

It may be that all games are silly. But then, so are humans.

Knowledge is power only if man knows what facts not to bother with.

Cut quarrels out of literature, and you will have very little history or drama or fiction or epic poetry left

It is in games that many men discover their paradise.

Most human beings are quite likeable if you do not see too much of them.

Every man of genius is considerably helped by being dead

In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.

There are some people who want to throw their arms round you just because it’s Christmas, there are other people who want to strangle you just because its Christmas

Almost any game with any ball is a good game.

If the poets offered us nothing more than another make-believe world, they would be mere sellers of drugs or, at best, sweetmeats.

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.

It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.

A cat is only technically an animal, being divine.

There is nothing that makes us feel so good as the idea that someone else is an evil-doer