Quotes to inspire and reflect

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?

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

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

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

In the arts of peace Man is a bungler.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.

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

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.

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

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

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

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

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.

He [the Briton] is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

I’m only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller.

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful.

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven’t and don’t.

Oh, you are a very poor soldier—a chocolate cream soldier!

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

His life was gentle, and the elements

Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him.

Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.

Now let it work; mischief, thou art afoot.

Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;

I am no orator, as Brutus is;

Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended … I pause for a reply.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;