Yes, of course, there's something fishy about describing people's feelings. You try hard to be accurate, but as soon as you start to define such and such a feeling, language lets you down. It's really a machine for making falsehoods. When we really speak the truth, words are insufficient. Almost everything except things like "pass the gravy" is a lie of a sort. And that being the case, I shall shut up. Oh, and... pass the gravy.

What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.

Nothing is more beautifully and acceptably self-assertive than good singing.

We must live by the light of our own self-satisfaction, through that secret vital busy inwardness which is even more remarkable than our reason.

Most of our love is shabby stuff, but there is always a thin line of gold, the bit of pure love on which all the rest depends -- and which redeems all the rest.

I think philosophy is extremely good training for anyone who wants to do anything. Although that is an idea which people may speak scornfully of now, I think it does teach one to

The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.