I was born in the country of Hogg and Scott between the Yarrow and the Tweed, in the year 1864.
I have no face, only two profiles clapped together.
From the happy expression on their faces you might have supposed that they welcomed the war. I have met with men who loved stamps, and stones, and snakes, but I could not imagine any man loving war.
There is nothing more perplexing in life than to know at what point you should surrender your intellect to your faith.
What a pity, when Christopher Colombus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it.
It is always dangerous to generalize, but the American people, while infinitely generous, are a hard and strong race and, but for the few cemeteries I have seen, I am inclined to think they never die.
Truthfulness with me is hardly a virtue. I cannot discriminate between truths that and those that don’t need to be told.
Symbols are the imaginative signposts of life.
She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake.
He could never see a belt without hitting below it.
She spends her day powdering her face till she looks like a bled pig.
The Bible tells us to forgive our enemies, not our friends.
Haunted from my early youth by the transitoriness and pathos of life, I was aware that it is not enough to say “I am doing no harm,” I ought to be testing myself daily, and asking myself what I am really achieving.
Stafford Cripps has a brilliant mind, until he makes it up.
There are some people that you cannot change, you must either swallow them whole or leave them alone.
The spirit is an inward flame; a lamp the world blows upon but never puts out.
Although I am not stupid, the mathematical side of my brain is like dumb notes upon a damaged piano.
Rich men’s houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.
There are big men, men of intellect, intellectual men, men of talent and men of action; but the great man is difficult to find, and it needs – apart from discernment – a certain greatness to find him.
All I can say about my mind is that, like a fire carefully laid by a good housemaid, it is one that any match will light...
The power to love what is purely abstract is given to few.