Private opinion creates public opinion. Public opinion overflows eventually into national behavior as things are arranged at present, can make or mar the world. That is why private opinion, and private behavior, and private conversation are so terrifyingly important.

To be put down in this world, and given only eighty years to get to know it in, is like being let loose in the United States of America for the first time with a high-powered car and unlimited gasoline - but with a visa that is valid for only a week. It's agonizing, that's what it is.

swans ... always look as though they'd just been reading their own fan-mail.

there is practically no difference at all between a family and a nation, except the difference in size. A family is a nation seen through the wrong end of a telescope; a nation is a family seen through the right end of a telescope, and I don't believe it is possible to achieve a happy and successful family life, or a happy and successful national life, unless we bear this simple fact in mind and behave accordingly.

And I am a mockery, who was God before.

When there is a world scarcity of any commodity, whether it's food or free speech, then the whole world must go on rations in order that eventually the whole world may have it again in plenty.

librarianship is one of the few callings in the world for which is it still possible to feel unqualified admiration and respect.