The gods bestowed on Max [Beerbohm] the gift of perpetual old age.

So much had been surrendered! And to such little purpose! There had been mad wilful rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape.

What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise for which we are later, in the fullness of time and understanding, very grateful for!

Two men look out a window. One sees mud, the other sees the stars.

The final mystery is oneself.

I must say... that I ruined myself: and that nobody, great or small, can be ruined except by his own hand.

There is a fatality about good resolutions – that they are always made too late