The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm.

Human creatures have a mervellous power of adapting themselves to necessity.

To every man it is decreed: Thou shalt live alone. Happy they who imagine that they have escaped the common lot; happy, whilst they imagine it.

To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity.

It is because nations tend towards stupidity and baseness that mankind moves so slowly; it is because individuals have a capacity for better things that it moves at all.

Literature nowadays is a trade... the successful man of letters is your skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets.

Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self compassion.