“Danger so indispensable in bringing out the fundamental quality of any society, group, or individual was what the Forsytes scented; the premonition of danger put a burnish on their armour.”

Love is not a hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind.

Love of beauty is really only the sex instinct, which nothing but complete union satisfies.

Religion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place – service – social service – the ants creed, the bees creed.

Love has no age, no limit; and no death.

First one, then the other, getting the upper hand, and too seldom fusing till the result has the mellowness of full achievement.

We have to love because we love loving.

If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.

Only love makes fruitful the soul.

I think the greatest thing in the world is to believe in people.

The value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it.

Life calls the tune, we dance.

The Forsytes were resentful of something, not individually, but as a family; this resentment expressed itself in an added perfection of raiment, an exuberance of family cordiality, an exaggeration of family importance, and the sniff.

Once admit that we have the right to inflict unnecessary suffering and you destroy the very basis of human society.

It is an age of stir and change, a season of new wine and old bottles. Yet, assuredly, in spite of breakages and waste, a wine worth the drinking is all the time being made.

The French cook; we open tins.

Men are in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions; they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions those inventions create.

The armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but from his own soul.