Shakespeare wrote great poetry and preposterous plays. Who really cares, for example, which petty tyrant rules Milan? Or who succeeds to the throne of Denmark? Or why the barons ganged up on Richard II?

By the age of eighteen, a human has acquired enough joy and heartache to provide the food of reflection for a century.

Every important change in our society, for the good, at least, has taken place because of popular pressure-pressure from below, from the great mass of people.

Three words remain that can yet stir the blood of man: the word 'rebellion'; the word 'revolt'; the word 'revolution'.

Orthodoxy is a relaxation of the mind accompanied by a stiffening of the heart.

Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsman grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and esthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one.

Jane Austen: Getting into her books is like getting in bed with a cadaver. Something vital is lacking; namely, life.