“There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it.”
– “The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett,” Fancies vs. Fads
“There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both, though in various ways, a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives.”
– Illustrated London News, March 3, 1906
“There are in this world of ours only two kinds of speakers. The first is the man who is making a good speech and won’t finish. The second is the man who is making a bad speech and can’t finish. The latter is the longer.”
– Illustrated London News, Feb. 24, 1906
“There are two kinds of charlatan: the man who is called a charlatan, and the man who really is one. The first is the quack who cures you; the second is the highly qualified person who doesn’t.”
– Illustrated London News, Feb. 15, 1908
“There are two kinds of revolutionists, as of most things – a good kind and a bad. The bad revolutionists destroy conventions by appealing to fads – fashions that are newer than conventions. The good do it by appealing to facts that are older than conventions.”
– Illustrated London News, April 30, 1910
“There are only two kinds of social structure conceivable – personal government and impersonal government. If my anarchic friends will not have rules – they will have rulers. Preferring personal government, with its tact and flexibility, is called Royalism. Preferring impersonal government, with its dogmas and definitions, is called Republicanism. Objecting broadmindedly both to kings and creeds is called Bosh.”
– “Imperialism,” What’s Wrong with the World
“There are two kinds of paradoxes. They are not so much the good and the bad, nor even the true and the false. Rather they are the fruitful and the barren; the paradoxes which produce life and the paradoxes that merely announce death. Nearly all modern paradoxes merely announce death.”
– Illustrated London News, March 11, 1911
“There are two kinds of fires: the Bad Fire and the Good Fire. And the paradox is that the Good Fire is made of bad things, of things that we do not want; but the Bad Fire is made of good things, of things that we do want.”
– “The Wrong Incendiary,” A Miscellany of Men
“There are two kinds of rebellion. The first is one in which the slave demands something that the tyrant has got. The second is one in which he demands something that the tyrant has not got.”
– Illustrated London News, Aug. 16, 1924
“There are only two kinds of ballads. There are sad ballads about broken hearts and cheerful ballads about broken heads.
– “The Voice of Shelley,” Apostle and the Wild Ducks