All we are asked to bear we can bear.

A well-trained dog is like religion, it sets the deserving at their ease and is a terror to evildoers.

autumn days have a holiness that spring lacks ... They are like old serene saints for whom death has lost its terror.

Acting a part is not always synonymous with lying; it is far often the best way of serving the truth. It is more truthful to act what we should feel if the community is to be well served rather than behave as we actually do feel in our selfish private feelings.

...The simple little words came easily, fitting themselves to the tune that had come out of the harpsichord. It didn't seem to her that she made them up at all. It seemed to her that they flew in from the rose-garden, through the open window, like a lot of butterflies, poised themselves on the point of her pen, and fell off it on to the paper.

Imagination comes from yourself and can deceive you, but vision is a gift from outside yourself - like light striking on your closed eyelids and lifting them to see what's really there.

All the best things are seen first of all at a far distance.