I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.

He sat gazing into the past.

I could no more marry a man about whom I could not make a fool of myself than I could marry one who made a fool of himself about me. Else had I long ceased to be a spinster.

The true conjurer finds his guerdon in the consciousness of work done perfectly and for its own sake.

One is taught to refrain from irony, because mankind does tend to take it literally.

You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. If man were not a gregarious animal, the world might have achieved, by this time, some real progress towards civilisation. Segregate him, and he is no fool. But let him loose among his fellows, and he is lost – he becomes just an unit in unreason.

I utilise all my spare moments. I’ve read twenty-seven of the Hundred Best Books. I collect ferns.

If man were not a gregarious animal, the world might have achieved, by this time, some real progress towards civilisation. Segregate him, and he is no fool. But let him loose among his fellows, and he is lost – he becomes just a unit in unreason.

He was too much concerned with his own perfection ever to think of admiring any one else.