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.

History gives us a kind of chart, and we dare not surrender even a small rushlight in the darkness. The hasty reformer who does not remember the past will find himself condemned to repeat it.

Without humility there can be no humanity.

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

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.

Leadership is only courage and wisdom, and a great carefulness of self.

Civilisation is a conspiracy.