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

The sea has formed the English character and the essential England is to be found in those who follow it. From blue waters they have learned mercifulness, and they have also learned - in the grimmest of schools - precision and resolution. The sea endures no makeshifts. If a thing is not exactly right it will be vastly wrong.

I would have been content with any job however thankless, in any quarter however remote, if I had a chance of making a corner of the desert blossom and the solitary place glad.

And where the deepest current crawls/ Like thistledown the dainty fly falls./ Then from the depths a silver gleam/ Quick flashes, like a jewel bright./ Up through the waters of the stream/ An instant visible to sight/ As lightning cleaves to sombre sky/ A rainbow rises to the fly.

I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest.

We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.

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