This concern with the basic condition of freedom -- the absence of physical constraint -- is unquestionably necessary, but is not all that is necessary. It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison and yet not free -- to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national State, or of some private interest within the nation, want him to think, feel and act.

...we were back at home, and I had returned to that reassuring but profoundly unsatisfactory state known as 'being in one's right mind.

If Men and Women took their Pleasures as noisily as the Cats, what Londoner could ever hope to sleep of nights?

A competent portraitist knows how to imply the profile in the full face.

In books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace people is high; in reality, very low.

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.

The pleasures of ignorance are as great, in their way, as the pleasures of knowledge.