Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people. They are relentless survivors. They are the oldest civilized people on earth. Their civilization passes through phases but its basic characteristics remain the same. They yield, they bend to the wind, but they never break.

French is the most beautiful,” he said, “and Italian is the most poetic, and Russian the most powerful, German the most solid. But more business is done in English than in any other.

If you start to revise before you've reached the end, you're likely to begin dawdling with the revisions and putting off the difficult task of writing.

To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.

The typhoon came out of the sea first as a deep hollow roar. ... I was surrounded by the madness, the unreason, of uncontrolled, undisciplined energy. None of this made any sense. It was worse than useless - it was nature destroying its own creation - its own self. To create by the long process of growth and then to destroy by a fit of wild emotion - was this not madness, was this not unreason?

A knowledge of history as detailed as possible is essential if we are to comprehend the present and be prepared for the future. Fate...is not the blind superstition or helplessness that waits stupidly for what may happen. Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance.

Purposeless activity may be a phase of death.