If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.

Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.

The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it.

And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods.

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy, the only decent thing to do is die at once.

Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.

There is no bore like a clever bore.

People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.

A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.

Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.

Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.

In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.

If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.

Money is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is flesh there is money or the want of money, but money is always on the brain so long as there is a brain in reasonable order.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.

The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.

The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.

It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'

Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.

To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.