. . . life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish t'other from which . . .

Only people who have been allowed to practise freedom can have the grown-up look in their eyes.

An acquaintance had become a lover, might become a husband, but would retain all that she had noted in the acquaintance; and love must confirm an old relation rather than reveal a new one.

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.

There lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer.

It is pleasant to be transferred from an office where one is afraid of a sergeant-major into an office where one can intimidate generals, and perhaps this is why history is so attractive to the more timid among us. We can recover self-confidence by snubbing the dead.

One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.