For some reason a nation feels as shy about admitting that it ever went forth to war for the sake of more wealth as a man would about admitting that he had accepted an invitation just for the sake of the food. This is one of humanity's most profound imbecilities, as perhaps the only justification for asking one's fellowmen to endure the horrors of war would be the knowledge that if they did not fight they would starve.

His smile bore the same relation to a real smile as false teeth do to real teeth.

I see the main problem of my life, and indeed anybody's life, as the balancing of competitive freedoms ... a sense of mutual obligations that have to be honored, and a legal system which can be trusted to step in when that sense fails.

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.

Of Virginia Woolf: The talent of this generation which is most certain of survival.

The American struggle for the vote was much more difficult than the English for the simple reason that it was much more easy.

Most magazines have that look of being predestined to be left which one sees on the faces of the women whose troubles bring them to the Law Courts.