English Law: where there are two alternatives: one intelligent, one stupid; one attractive, one vulgar; one noble, one ape-like; one serious and sincere, one undignified and false; one far-sighted, one short; EVERYBODY will INVARIABLY choose the latter.

Green leaves on a dead tree is our epitaph-green leaves, dear reader, on a dead tree.

No taste is so acquired as that for someone else's quality of mind.

Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.

No education is worth having that does not teach the lesson of concentration on a task, however unattractive. These lessons, if not learnt early, will be learnt, if at all, with pain and grief in later life.

When in doubt, choose greatness.

The more I see of life the more I perceive that only through solitary communion with nature can one gain an idea of its richness and meaning.