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.

By its very looseness, by its way of evoking rather than defining, suggesting rather than saying, English is a magnificent vehicle for emotional poetry.

To destroy is still the strongest instinct of our nature.

Of all the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful.

Undergraduates owe their happiness chiefly to the consciousness that they are no longer at school. The nonsense which was knocked out of them at school is all put gently back at Oxford or Cambridge.

We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of Americans.

Zuleika, on a desert island, would have spent most of her time in looking for a man's footprint.