Much misunderstanding would be prevented if we were to say exactly what we believe and not modify it to suit, as we suppose, the person to whom we speak.
Humour people sometimes in what you do, but not in the expression of your convictions. Go a mile out of your way to please an obstinate friend, but utter with precision what you believe. It is in the sharpness and finish that its value lies.
Everybody in these civilised, intercommunicative days seems arrested: everybody is a compromise. It is rare that we meet with a person who has been let alone, whose own particular self has been developed free from intrusion.
People believe the truth more readily if something difficult of belief or incredible is mixed with it.
I want no more beliefs. What I want is active strength in those I have. I know there is no ghost round the corner, but I dare not go.
There is always a point in our insistence or persuasion when it is most effective, and generally it is much lower than we suppose. One degree above it is waste and impediment.
Keep a watch upon your tongue when you are in particularly good health.
Early morning before sunrise: the valley was filled with mist; red clouds in the sky. For a minute or two the mist took the colour, but fainter, of the clouds. What patience is required in order to see! The sun had not risen, the grass in the field was obviously green, but not without intent fixture of the eyes upon it was the dark, twilight shade of green recognised which was its peculiar meaning and beauty. To most of us, perhaps not to artists, it is more difficult to look than to think.
The just judgment is not that of the judge who has no interest in it. The most unjust judgments are due to indifference.
The sun is setting in crimson, delicate blue and green. I think of the earth as a revolving ball. ‘This was the Creator’s design, or, if we prefer so to speak, this was the law, that there should be a ball and that it should turn on its axis. But just as surely was it the design or law that there should be these colours, crimson, blue, and green, and that I should be affected by them. This affection was rolled up in the primal impulse which started the planet and is as necessary as its revolution.