“To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.”

Quote in: Undated letters to Jackson, in The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough, ed. Mary Woodall, 1961
undated, Undated letters to William Jackson

Source: Necromancer (1962), Chapter 5 (p. 36)

The Need of Atheism
Context: Because morality is a social necessity, the moment faith in god is banished, man's gaze turns from god to man and he becomes socially conscious. Religious belief prevented the growth of a sense of realism. But atheism at once makes man realistic and alive to the needs of morality. Atheism alone is the surest way to morality. Those who oppose atheism in any form betray their vested interests in inequality of some kind of other.

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

" On the Qualifications Necessary for Success http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Success.htm"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

Source: "Quick Quotations" in My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)
Context: The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands.

Source: Master of Space and Time (1984), Chapter 23, “The Way Uptown” (p. 180)

Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting