... Rembrandt is not a painter at all. He is a creator, who creates his beings, three dimensional living beings, on a two-dimensional flat surface which acts as a mute, and enforces silence on them.

... possessiveness cannot accept; it cannot even strike a fair bargain; it has to confer.

One need not write in a diary what one is to remember for ever.

[On an anarchist acquaintance:] Everything in appearance the most alarmist aunt could wish.

Happiness is an immunity.

I cannot love people in the country, I discover, because there is always this danger that they may be acquaintances, with all the perils and choleras of acquaintance implicit in them; but in London they seem as charming as rabbits.

Reason is a poor hand at prophecies.