Neckties strangle clear thinking.

No child is born with a really cold heart, and it is only in proportion as we lose that youthful heart that we lose the inner warmth in ourselves.

If there is anything we are serious about, it is neither religion nor learning, but food.

Only he who handles his ideas lightly is master of his ideas, and only he who is master of his ideas is not enslaved by them.

Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks.

I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content.

There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.