When the master has come to do everything through the slave, the slave — Back to Methuselah

"Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn."

"People will have their miracles, their stories, their heroes and heroines and saints and martyrs and divinities to exercise their gifts of affection, admiration, wonder, and worship, and their Judases and devils to enable them to be angry and yet feel that they do well to be angry. Every one of these legends is the common heritage of the human race; and there is only one inexorable condition attached to their healthy enjoyment, which is that no one shall believe them literally. The reading of stories and delighting in them made Don Quixote a gentleman: the believing them literally made him a madman who slew lambs instead of feeding them."

"I worship you, Eve. I must have something to worship. Something quite different to myself, like you. There must be something greater than the snake."

"Life must not cease. That comes before everything. It is silly to say you do not care. You do care. It is that care that will prompt your imagination; inflame your desires; make your will irresistible; and create out of nothing."

"I hear you say "Why?" Always "Why?" You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"

"Any sort of plain speaking is better than the nauseous sham good fellowship our democratic public men get up for shop use."