Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of Socialism--that true Socialism which is based not on equality of income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the democracy of the caffè or the street the great question of our life has been solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But it is accomplished at the expense of the sisterhood of women.

A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.

Curiosity is one of the lowest of the human faculties. You will have noticed in daily life that when people are inquisitive they nearly always have bad memories and are usually stupid at bottom.

By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.

Those who prepared for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.

Life's very difficult and full of surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged - well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in - to live by proportion. Don't begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed.

There is much good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We are children, playing or quarrelling on the line.