To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education.

"What would you call the highest happiness, Lewie?" he asked. "The sense of competence," was the answer, given without hesitation.

Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.

That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.

It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.

The book trade is a spiritual barometer of a nations well-being.

You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.