“And if insight were sufficient, if the inner life were the whole of life, their happiness has been assured.”

“There are moments when the inner life actually 'pays,' when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use.”

“Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror - on the things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware of muddle.”

“They cared for no one, they were outside humanity, and death, had it come, would only have continued their pursuit of a retreating horizon.”

“The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.”

“He will work off his crudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life gracefully.”

“In Europe life retreats out of the cold, and exquisite fireside myths have resulted—Balder, Persephone—but [in India] the retreat is from the source of life, the treacherous sun, and no poetry adorns it because disillusionment cannot be beautiful. Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form, and India fails to accommodate them.”