Pity wraps the student of the past in an ambrosial cloud, and washes his limbs with eternal youth.

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?

Faith, to my mind, is a stiffening process, a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as possible. I dislike the stuff. I do not believe in it, for its own sake, at all... My lawgivers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St Paul. My temple stands not upon Mount Moriah but in the Elysian Field where even the immoral are admitted. My motto is 'Lord, I disbelieve - help thou my unbelief.

We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.

“It is Fate that I am here,” persisted George. “But you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy.”

Lord I disbelieve - help thou my unbelief.

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