It's no use telling us that something was 'mysterious' or 'loathsome' or 'awe-inspiring' or 'voluptuous.' By direct description, by metaphor and simile, by secretly evoking powerful associations, by offering the right stimuli to our nerves (in the right degree and the right order), and by the very beat and vowel-melody and length and brevity of your sentences, you must bring it about that we, we readers, not you, exclaim, 'how mysterious!' or 'loathsome' or whatever it is. Let me taste for myself, and you'll have no need to tell me how I should react.

If we did not bring to the examinations of our instincts a knowledge of their comparative dignity we could never learn it from them.

Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him.

Repentance is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose; it is simply a description of what going back is like.

Mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step; for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair.

We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it.

When he was a young man he prayed constantly for chastity; but years later he realized that while his lips had been saying 'Oh Lord, make me chaste,' his heart had been secretly adding, 'But please don't do it just yet.