I know he is really happy, and yet I can never catch him at it.

Men trust an ordinary man because they trust themselves. But men trust a great man because they do not trust themselves. And hence the worship of great men always appears in times of weakness and cowardice; we never hear of great men until the time when all other men are small.

The people who wrote the mediaeval ballads, answered the priest, knew more about fairies than you do. It isn't only nice things that happen in fairyland.

Being 'contented' ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.

Jane Austen was born before those bonds which (we are told) protected women from truth, were burst by the Brontës or elaborately untied by George Eliot. Yet the fact remains that Jane Austen knew more about men than either of them. Jane Austen may have been protected from truth: but it was precious little of truth that was protected from her.

None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them.

Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined.