We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.

Death doesn't affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn't concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.

Our natural egoism leads us to judge people by their relations to ourselves. We want them to be certain things to us, and for us that is what they are; because the rest of them is no good to us, we ignore it.

By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him.

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

Only mediocre people are at the best all the time.

Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.