Man and Superman and Three Other Plays (74 page)

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

The man with toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

The more a man possesses over and above what he uses, the more careworn he becomes.

In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness.

The unconscious self is the real genius. Your breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious self meddles with it.

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.

Decency is Indecency's Conspiracy of Silence.

Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones.

All men mean well.

Life levels all men: death reveals the eminent.

Home is the girl's prison and the woman's workhouse.

The most popular method of distributing wealth is the method of the roulette table.

We are told that when Jehovah created the world he saw that it was good. What would he say now?

The conversion of a savage to Christianity is the conversion of Christianity to savagery.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

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