Writer

Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it.

People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.

The only defensible war is a war of defense.

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

White... is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black... God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.

Kita memilih siapa teman kita; kita membuat musuh kita; tapi Tuhan menjadikan tetangga sebelah kita.

'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.