And why should it not be terrifying? A little terror, in my view, is good for the soul, when it is terror in the face of a noble object.
Childhood may have periods of great happiness, but it also has times that must simply be endured. Childhood at its best is a form of slavery tempered by affection.
The Bible takes much of its color from whoever is reading it, and it provides a text to support almost every shade of opinion, however preposterous.
Civilization rests on two things: the discovery that fermentation produces alcohol, and the voluntary ability to inhibit defecation. And I put it to you, where would this splendid civilization be without both?
I don’t suppose God laughs at the people who think He doesn’t exist. He’s above jokes. But the devil isn’t. That’s one of his most endearing qualities.
May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery.
Although there may be nothing new under the sun, what is old is new to us and so rich and astonishing that we never tire of it. If we do tire of it, if we lose our curiosity, we have lost something of infinite value, because to a high degree it is curiosity that gives meaning and savour to life.
Too much traffic with a quotation book begets a conviction of ignorance in a sensitive reader. Not only is there a mass of quotable stuff he never quotes, but an even vaster realm of which he has never heard.
Only a fool expects to be happy all the time.
Canada was settled, in the main, by people with a lower middle-class outlook, and a respect, rather than an affectionate familiarity, for the things of the mind.
If a man wants to be of the greatest possible value to his fellow-creature s let him begin the long, solitary task of perfecting himself.
The book forces itself into my mind when I am lugging furniture, or pulling weeds.
Inactivity and deprivation of all accustomed stimulus is not rest; it is a preparation for the tomb.
Female beauty in an important Minor Sacrament which cannot be received too often; I am no sure at all that the neglect of it does not constitute a sin of some kind.
He was a genius – that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities.
Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.
If you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
The average politician goes through a sentence like a man exploring a disused mine shaft-blind, groping, timorous and in imminent danger of cracking his shins on a subordinate clause or a nasty bit of subjunctive.
Tristan and Isolde were lucky to die when they did. They’d have been sick of all that rubbish in a year.
The drama may be called that part of theatrical art which lends itself most readily to intellectual discussion: what is left is theater.