It is not difficult to stand above the conventions when we leave no hostages among them; men can always be more unconventional than women, and a bachelor of independent means need encounter no difficulties at all.

…But so few of us think clearly about our own private incomes, and admit that independent thoughts are in nine cases out of ten the result of independent means.

Books have to be read (worse luck it takes so long a time). It is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the West.

So, Two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism

It is the one orderly product our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths; it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden the best evidence we can give of our dignity.

There is much good luck in the world, but it is luck. We are none of us safe. We are children, playing or quarrelling on the line.