“What is said is given out to suit the temperament of the hearers”

“It's the side-by-side culture of the Talmud I like so much. 'On the one hand' and 'on the other hand' is frustrating for people seeking absolute faith, but for me it gives religion an ambidextrous quality that suits my temperament.”

“Marius was of the temperament that sinks into grief and remains there; Cosette was of the sort that plunges in and comes out again.”

“Every public speaker likes his hearer to imagine his oratory as an unpremeditated gift of nature, and not the result of prolonged and patient study [Lionel Logue said]”

“Temperament is fixed, set. The skull, followed by the temperament: the two hardest parts of the body. Follow your temperament. It is not a philosophy, It is a rule, like the Rule of St Benedict.”

“It was that his words, his telling, just did not synchronize with what his hearers believed would (and must) be the scope of a single individual.”