It isn't enough to love people because they're good to you, or because in some way or other you're going to get something by it. We have to love because we love loving.

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.

There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath the careless calm of her ordinary moods-violent spring flashing white on almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy, moonlit peak, with its single star, soaring up to the passionate blue; or against the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing dark guardian of some fiery secret.

By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men's souls.

It isn't enough to love people because they're good to you, or because in some way or other you're going to get something by it. We have to love because we love loving.

From behind a wooden crate we saw a long black-muzzled nose poking round at us. We took him out-soft, wobbly, tearful; set him down on his four, as yet not quite simultaneous legs, and regarded him. He wandered a little round our legs, neither wagging his tail nor licking at our hands; then he looked up, and my companion said: "He's an angel!"

Light-heartedness always made Soames suspicious - there was generally some reason for it.