A tale from which pieces have been raked out is like a fire that has been poked. One does not know the operation has been performed, but everyone feels the effect.

Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep... For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that an' Chuck him out, the brute! But it's Saviour of his country, when the guns begins to shoot!

Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves.

Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established.

The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so! To my own Gods I go. It may be they shall give me greater ease than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.

If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting ... if you can dream, and not make dreams your master; if you can think, and not make thoughts your aim; if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same; ... yours is the earth and everything that's in it...

You may talk o' gin and beer When you're quartered safe out 'ere, An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it; But when it comes to slaughter You will do your work on water, An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.