The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them,and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones too seriously; it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves.

The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object.

Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers.

Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly.

We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness.

The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that.