we can forgive anything as long as it isn't done to us.

Metaphysical speculation is about as pointless as a discussion on the meaning of one's lungs. They're for breathing.

Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin.

The greatest mystery of all is the human heart.

Perfect love may cast our fear, but fear is remarkably potent in casting out love.

If this were fiction, could even the most brilliant novelist contrive to make credible so short a period in which pride had been subdued and prejudice overcome?

Childhood is the one prison from which there's no escape, the one sentence from which there's no appeal. We all serve our time.