Somehow, our sense of justice never turns in its sleep till long after the sense of injustice in others has been thoroughly aroused.

Not that I had any special reason for hating school. Strange as it may seem to my readers, I was not unpopular there. I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.

Only the insane take themselves seriously.

I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect, either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.

People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the breakfast table.

A quiet city is a contradiction in terms. It is a thing uncanny, spectral.

Reverence is a good thing, and part of its value is that the more we revere a man, the more sharply are we struck by anything in him (and there is always much) that is incongruous with his greatness.