All along the line, physically, mentally, morally, alcohol is a weakening and deadening force...

It would be curious to discover who it is to whom one writes in a diary. Possibly to some mysterious personification of one’s own identity.

That part of the Englishman’s nature which has found gratification in religion is now drifting into political life.

The interruptions of the telephone seem to us to waste half the life of the ordinary American engaged in public or private business; he has seldom half an hour consecutively at his own disposal – a telephone is a veritable time scatterer.

Renunciation – that is the great fact we all, individuals and classes, have to learn. In trying to avoid it we bring misery to ourselves and others.

At present I feel like a caged animal, bound up by the luxury, comfort and respectability of my position. I can’t get the training that I want without neglecting my duty.

. . . if I had been a man, self-respect, family pressure and the public opinion of my class would have pushed me into a money-making profession; as a mere woman I could carve out a career of disinterested research.

Nature still obstinately refuses to co-operate by making the rich people innately superior to the poor people.

If I ever felt inclined to be timid as I was going into a room hill of people, I would say to myself, "You're the cleverest member of one of the cleverest families in the cleverest class of the cleverest nation in the world-why should you be frightened?

Work is the best of narcotics, providing the patient be strong enough to take it. I dread idleness as if it were Hell.