Goodness is, so to speak, itself; badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled.

Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you.

There was nothing medieval people liked better, or did better, than sorting out and tidying up. Of all our modern inventions I suspect that they would most have admired the card index.

But now I discovered the wonderful power of wine. I understood why men become drunkards. For the way it worked on me was not at all that it blotted out these sorrows, but that it made them seem glorious and noble, like sad music, and I somehow great and revered for feeling them.

Though under earth, and throneless now I be Yet while I lived all earth was under me.

A tyrannous and gluttonous demand for affection can be a horrible thing. But in ordinary life no one calls a child selfish because it turns for comfort to its mother; nor an adult who turns to his fellow "for company." Those, whether children or adults, who do so least are not usually the most selfless.

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water...If I find in myself a desire, which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.