Conventions are like coins, an easy way of dealing with the commerce of relations.

It is better to be passionate than to be tolerant at the expense of one's soul.

All the feeling which my father could not put into words was in his hand-any dog, child or horse would recognize the kindness of it.

The past is our treasure. Its works, whether we know them or not, flourish in our lives with whatever strength they had. From it we draw provision for our journey, the collected wisdom whose harvests are all ours to reap and carry with us, though we may never live again in the fields that grew them.

This is excellence - the following of anything for its own sake and with its own integrity.

The monstrosity of bureaucracy, I thought: always the pint-pot judging the gallon, the scribe's, the door-keeper's world. Always the stupidity of people who feel certain about things they never try to find out. A world that educates people to be ignorant - that is what this world of ours is.

It is only the unexpected that ever makes a customs officer think.