The redemptive power of divine grace no longer seemed credible, nor very respectable in the arbitrary performance that was claimed for it.

I don't believe that to understand is necessarily to pardon, but I feel that to understand makes one forget that one cannot pardon.

... it is nearly impossible to understand those who are beyond our sight, who are not explained to us by ties of birth or the contact of the flesh.

Mr. James Joyce is a great man who is entirely without taste.

If ever peace is to be imposed on the world it will only be because a large number of men who could have taken part in the drill display by the Guards or Marines or at the Royal Tournament turn that strength and precision to the service of life.

She saw she had fallen into the hands of one of those doctors who have strayed too far from apparent in the direction of the soul.

Were I to go down into the market-place, armed with the powers of witchcraft, and take a peasant by the shoulders and whisper to him, 'In your lifetime, have you known peace?' wait for his answer, shake his shoulders and transform him into his father, and ask him the same question, and transform him in his turn to his father, I would never hear the word 'Yes,' if I carried my questioning of the dead back for a thousand years. I would always hear, 'No, there was fear, there were our enemies without, our rulers within, there was prison, there was torture, there was violent death.