Quotes to inspire and reflect

The younger generation is knocking at the door, and as I open it there steps spritely in the incomparable Max.

The trouble, Mr Goldwyn, is that you are only interested in art and I am only interested in money.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

‘Do you know what a pessimist is?’ ‘A man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.’

Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination?

I’m one of the undeserving poor … up agen middle-class morality all the time … What is middle-class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything.

It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

Anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you.

You will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

Beware of the man whose god is in the skies.

If you strike a child take care that you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior, and are disgraced by the inferior.

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

When the military man approaches, the world locks up its spoons and packs off its womankind.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

In the arts of peace Man is a bungler.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.

Englishmen never will be slaves: they are free to do whatever the Government and public opinion allow them to do.

But a lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one young woman and another.

He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

Alcohol is a very necessary article … It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.

The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.

I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.

You have to choose (as a voter) between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the Government. And, with due respect for these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the Capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold.

What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.

It’s all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

Martyrdom … the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.