All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks. 613
The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself. 2.19K
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. 539
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. 517
The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it. 592
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die. 579
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. 1.02K
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite. 1.88K
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. 543
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. 515
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. 593
