Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.

Advice to first year medical students: In anatomy, it is better to have learned and lost than never to have learned at all.

The Almighty can hardly be such a fool as the churches make out.

Writing is the supreme solace.

Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to.

For my part I cannot believe in a God who is angry with me because I do not believe in him. I cannot believe in a God who is less tolerant than I. I cannot believe in a God who has neither humour nor common sense.

A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.