All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks. 715
The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself. 2.28K
Man does not live by soap alone; and hygiene, or even health, is not much good unless you can take a healthy view of it or, better still, feel a healthy indifference to it. 636
All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. 623
The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it. 682
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die. 661
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. 1.11K
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite. 1.98K
Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache. 628
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. 658
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. 690
