One never feels such distaste for one's countrymen and countrywomen as when one meets them abroad.

Atheism was natural enough, but heresy seemed strange. For, surely, if one could believe anything, one could believe everything.

Parents are untamed, excessive, potentially troublesome creatures; charming to be with for a time, in the main they must lead their own lives, independent and self-employed, with companions of their own age and selection.

Did you ever look through a microscope at a drop of pond water? You see plenty of love there. All the amoebae getting married. I presume they think it very exciting and important. We don't.

How far does one combine resistance to over-control with social justice, i.e. tolerable living for people in general? We are too selfish to be trusted, if left free, to give away enough to make people comfortable enough to give them a chance. Yet if all this is ordered for us, as to some extent it has to be, it so soon leads to tyranny. It is a very difficult problem. If only human beings had more pity, unselfishness, and justice and didn't need coercion to treat each other decently.

One should, I think, always give children money, for they will spend it for themselves far more profitably than we can ever spend it for them.

Giving is not at all interesting; but receiving is, there is no doubt about it, delightful.