It seems to me quite disastrous that the idea should have got about that Christianity is an other-worldly, unreal, idealistic kind of religion that suggests that if we are good we shall be happy. On the contrary, it is fiercely and even harshly realistic, insisting that there are certain eternal achievements that make even happiness look like trash.

I say, I don’t think the human frame is very thoughtfully constructed for this sleuthhound business. If one could go on all fours, or had eyes in ones knees, it would be a lot more practical’… ‘What luck! Here’s a deep, damp ditch on the other side, which I shall now proceed to fall into.’ A slithering crash proclaimed that he had carried out his intention.

The keeping of an idle woman is a badge of superior social status.

The business of the artist is not to escape from his material medium or bully it, but to serve it; but to serve it, he must love it. If he does so, he will realise that in its service is perfect freedom.

For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.

And then, at night, the lit lamp and the drawn curtain, with the flutter of the turned page and soft scrape of pen on paper the only sounds to break the silence between quarter- and quarter-chime.

It is said that love and a cough cannot be hid.