The langour of Youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth - all save this come and go with us through life...These things are a part of life itself; but languor - the relaxation of yet unwearied sinews, the mind sequestered and self-regarding, the sun standing still in the heavens and the earth throbbing to our own pulse - that belongs to Youth alone and dies with it.

We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school.

O God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin.

One has to regard a man as a Master who can produce on average three uniquely brilliant and entirely original similes to every page.

Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.'-William Boot

Every Englishman abroad, until it is proved to the contrary, likes to consider himself a traveller and not a tourist.

I prefer all but the very worst travel books, to all but the very best novels.