I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

I think it very wrong to pray for people while they are in distress and then not to continue praying, now with thanksgiving, when they are relieved.

Extraordinary things only happen to extraordinary people. Maybe it's a sign that you've got an extraordinary destiny--something greater than you could've imagined.

See the bear in his own den before you judge of his conditions.

Meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words ' God can'.

Unless the religious claims of the Bible are again acknowledged, its literary claims will, I think, be given only 'mouth honour' and that decreasingly.