Suffering has roused them from the sleep of gentle life, and every day fills them with a terrible intoxication. They are now something more than themselves; those we loved were merely happy shadows.

A library is that venerable place where men preserve the history of their experience, their tentative experiments, their discoveries, and their plans... in books may be found the recipes for daily living - the prescriptions for the mind and the heart.

It is always brave to say what everyone thinks.

The swimmer adrift on the open seas measures his strength, and strives with all his muscles to keep himself afloat. But what is he to do when there is no land on the horizon, and none beyond it?

Let us lose none of their humble words, let us note their slightest gestures, and tell me, tell me that we will think of them together, now and later, when we realise the misery of the times and the magnitude of their sacrifice.

When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.

I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world.