The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.

When people are suspicious with you, you start being suspicious with them.

The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace, The prurient ape's defiling touch: And do you like the human race? No, not much.

he had been making an unsuccessful effort to write something about nothing in particular

But every one belongs to every one else

To travel is to discover that everybody is wrong. The philosophies, the civilizations which seem, at a distance, so superior to those current at home, all prove on a close inspection to be in their own way just as hopelessly imperfect.

...it is not what one has experienced but what one does with what one has experienced that matters.