My Small Boat

On being asked to apologise for calling a fellow MP a liar.
Mr Speaker, I said the honourable member was a liar it is true and I am sorry for it. The honourable member may place the punctuation where he please.

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray dawn breaking.
I must […]

Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

A boy is noise with dirt on it.

Only he who shouts for the Jews can sing the Gregorian chant.

Those to whom nothing has happpened cannot understand the unimportance of events.

Evolutionary Hymn
Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future’s endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.
Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there’s always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we’re going,
We can never go astray.
To whatever variation
Our […]

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

The only person who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.

Do I not destroy my enemy when I make a friend of him

There is something ridiculous and even quite indecent in an individual claiming to be happy. Still more a people or a nation making such a claim. The pursuit of happiness… is without any question the most fatuous which could possibly be undertaken. This lamentable phrase ”the pursuit of happiness” is responsible for a good part […]