If human nature does alter it will be because individuals manage to look at themselves in a new way. Here and there people - a very few people, but a few novelists are among them - are trying to do this. Every institution and vested interest in against such a search: organized religion, the state, the family in its economic aspect, have nothing to gain, and it is only when outward prohibitions weaken that it can proceed: history conditions it to that extent.

I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them.

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal.

I distrust Great Men... I believe in aristocracy, though... Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet... They are sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.

Suspense: the only literary tool that has any effect upon tyrants and savages.

He had shown her all the workings of his soul, mistaking this for love.

Chess is a forcing house where the fruits of character can ripen more fully than in life