“There are many victories worse than a defeat.”

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.

We are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence, and act as if we were not suffering.

Those who trust us educate us.

It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.

That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don’t quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil — widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.

It is a common sentence that knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down.

Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?

The best travel is that which one can take by one’s own fireside. In memory or imagination.

In bed our yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up, though it be but to whistle or to smoke, he has a present which offers some resistance to the past-sensations which assert themselves against tyrannous memories.

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

I don’t want the world to give me anything for my books except money enough to save me from the temptation to write only for money.

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.

Consequences are unpitying.

I flutter all ways, and fly in none.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

A new dog never replaces an old dog; it merely expands the heart. If you have loved many dogs, your heart is very big.

We cannot change the way the world is, but by opening ourselves to the world as it is, we may find that gentleness, decency and bravery are available – not only to us, but to all human beings.

Our program is simple: we wish to govern Italy. They ask us for programs but there are already too many. It is not programs that are wanting for the salvation of Italy but men and will power.

I love watching faces as they grow up. It’s the difference between so many strong British actresses compared to what America does to women.

The curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many.

He was afflicted by the thought that where Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which no doubt, was why so many people looked on it as immoral.

Too many kids today are playing major league ball and don’t belong there.

A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one’s heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.