“I would rather be an opportunist and float than go to the bottom with my principles around my neck.”

“I would rather trust a woman's instinct than a man's reason.”

“War would end if the dead could return.”

“A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it.”

“What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot through the ages.[Baldwin was attacking the leading press barons of his day (Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere); the phrase was suggested by Baldwin's cousin Rudyard Kipling (17 March 1931)]”

“I have walked through many lives,some of them my own,and I am not who I was,though some principle of beingabides, from which I strugglenot to stray.”

“The LayersI have walked through many lives,some of them my own,and I am not who I was,though some principle of beingabides, from which I strugglenot to stray.When I look behind,as I am compelled to lookbefore I can gather strengthto proceed on my journey,I see the milestones dwindlingtoward the horizonand the slow fires trailingfrom the abandoned camp-sites,over which scavenger angelswheel on heavy wings.Oh, I have made myself a tribeout of my true affections,and my tribe is scattered!How shall the heart be reconciledto its feast of losses?In a rising windthe manic dust of my friends,those who fell along the way,bitterly stings my face.Yet I turn, I turn,exulting somewhat,with my will intact to gowherever I need to go,and every stone on the roadprecious to me.In my darkest night,when the moon was coveredand I roamed through wreckage,a nimbus-clouded voicedirected me:“Live in the layers,not on the litter.”Though I lack the artto decipher it,no doubt the next chapterin my book of transformationsis already written.I am not done with my changes.”