The book trade is a spiritual barometer of a nations well-being.
To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education.
History gives us a kind of chart, and we dare not surrender even a small rushlight in the darkness. The hasty reformer who does not remember the past will find himself condemned to repeat it.
I am an ordinary sort of fellow, not braver than other people, but I hate to see a good man downed, and that long knife would not be the end of Scudder if I could play the game in his place.
I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal.
You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.
It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.
What would you call the highest happiness? Wratislaw was asked. The sense of competence, was the answer, given without hesitation.
Bethink you of the blessedness. Every wife is like the Mother of God and has the hope of bearing a saviour of mankind.
A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different.
I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous.
The world was arrogant and self-satisfied, but behind all this confidence there was an uneasy sense of impending disaster. The old creeds, both religious and political, were largely in the process of dissolution, but we did not realise the fact, and therefore did not look for new foundations.
Our sufferings have taught us that no nation is sufficient unto itself, and that our prosperity depends in the long run, not upon the failures of our neighbors but their successes.
Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn’t a bit of right.
Leadership is only courage and wisdom, and a great carefulness of self.
The Church of Christ is an anvil which has worn out many hammers. Our opponents may boast of their strength, but they do not realize what they have challenged.
Wise men never grow up; indeed, they grow younger, for they lose the appalling worldly wisdom of youth.
I was a peaceful sedentary man, a lover of a quiet life, with no appetite for perils and commotions. But I was beginning to realise that I was very obstinate.
Young girls passed me with romance still in their eyes, and others, a little older, with the romance dead.
The vows we take in the holy place bind us till we are purged of them at Inanda’s Kraal. Till then no blood must be shed and no flesh eaten. It was the fashion of our forefathers.