“to teach without zest is a crime.”

“People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms any more then they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime.”

“Once she knows how to read there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in and that is herself.”

“One must own that there are certain books which can be read without the mind and without the heart, but still with considerable enjoyment.”

“Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote, I thought, looking at Antony and Cleopatra; and when people compare Shakespeare and Jane Austen, they may mean that the minds of both had consumed all impediments; and for that reason we do not know Jane Austen and we do not know Shakespeare, and for that reason Jane Austen pervades every word that she wrote, and so does Shakespeare.”

“It might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.”

“To sit and contemplate - to remember the faces of women without desire, to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy and yet content to remain where and what you are.”