For Scotland has a double dose of the poison called heredity; the sense of blood in the aristocrat, the sense of doom in the Calvinist.

Facts as facts do not always create a spirit of reality, because reality is a spirit.

It may be a mere patriotic bias, though I do not think so, but it seems to me that the English aristocracy is not only the type, but is the crown and flower of all actual aristocracies; it has all the oligarchical virtues as well as all the defects. It is casual, it is kind, it is courageous in obvious matters; but it has one great merit that overlaps even these. The great and very obvious merit of the English aristocracy is that nobody could possibly take it seriously.

If you convey to a woman that something ought to be done, there is always a dreadful danger that she will suddenly do it.

The great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look like gifts.

Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.

The simplification of anything is always sensational.