The more populous the world and the more intricate its structure, the greater must be its fundamental insecurity. A world-structure too elaborately scientific, if once disrupted by war, revolution, natural cataclysm or epidemic, might collapse into a chaos not easily rebuilt.

The simile sets two ideas side by side; in the metaphor they become superimposed.

It seems to me as natural and necessary to keep notes, however brief, of one's reading, as logs of voyages or photographs of one's travels. For memory, in most of us, is a liar with galloping consumption.

Since in the long run deception is likely to be found out, your character had better not only seem good, but be it.

And how is clarity to be achieved? Mainly by taking trouble and by writing to serve people rather than to impress them.

Most style is not honest enough.

At Munich we sold the Czechs for a few months grace, but the disgrace will last as long as history.