If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious.

Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.

Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror - on the things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware of muddle.

I don't know what to think until I see what I've said.

Letters have to pass two tests before they can be classed as good: they must express the personality both of the writer and of the recipient.

Let us think of people as starting life with an experience they forget and ending it with one which they anticipate but cannot understand.

The tragedy of preparedness has scarcely been handled, save by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but not in the way morality would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a romance, and its essence is romantic beauty.