The grinding power of the plain words of the Gospel story is like the power of mill-stones, and those who can read them simply enough will feel as if rocks had been rolled upon them.

The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why.

The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion.

Only men to whom the family is sacred will ever have a standard or a status by which to criticize the State. They alone can appeal to something more holy than the gods of the city.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller

A man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher.