For every one pupil who needs to be guarded against a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.

Many thousands of people have had the experience of finding the first friend, and it is none the less a wonder; as great a wonder (pace the novelists) as first love, or even greater.

To interest is the first duty of art; no other excellences will ever begin to compensate for failure in this.

Think of me as a fellow patient in the same hospital who, having been admitted a little earlier could give some advice.

The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven.

We treat our dogs as if they were "almost human": that is why they really become "almost human" in the end.

The happiness which God designs for his higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to him.