the unforgivable was usually the most easily forgiven.

In youth we take egregious risks because death has no reality for us. Youth goes caparisoned in immortality. It is only in middle age that we are shadowed by the awareness of the transitoriness of life.

It's easy to get a reputation for wisdom. It's only necessary to live long, speak little and do less.

Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past; without hope of a future he becomes a beast.

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.

A man who lives with nature is used to violence and is companionable with death. There is more violence in an English hedgerow than in the meanest streets of a great city.

There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment.