“If we are to be happy, decent and secure of our souls: drink some kind of fermented liquor with one's food; go on the water from time to time; dance on occasions, and sing in a chorus...”

“For I know that we laughers have a gross cousinship with the most high, and it is this contrast and perpetual quarrel which feeds a spring of merriment in the soul of a sane man.”

“For no one, in our long decline,So dusty, spiteful and divided,Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,Or loved them half as much as I did.”

“No, she laughed." How on earth could that be done? If you try to laugh and say ‘No’ at the same time, it sounds like neighing — yet people are perpetually doing it in novels. If they did it in real life they would be locked up.”

“Steep are the seas and savaging and coldIn broken waters terrible to try;And vast against the winter night the wold,And harbourless for any sail to lie.But you shall lead me to the lights, and IShall hymn you in a harbour story told.This is the faith that I have held and hold,And this is that in which I mean to die.”

“I have wandered all my life, and I have traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.”

“Life is a veil, its paths are dark and roughOnly because we do not know enoughWhen Science has discovered something moreWe shall be happier than we were before.”