Every idol, however exalted, turns out, in the long run, to be a Moloch, hungry for human sacrifice.

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’s embarrassing to tell you this, but it seems to come down mostly to just learning to be kinder.

Feasts must be solemn and rare, or else they cease to be feasts.

Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul.

When one individual comes into intimate contact with another, she—or he, of course, as the case may be—must almost inevitably receive or inflict suffering.

Lying in bed, he would think of Heaven and London.