In the presence of some people we inevitably depart from ourselves: we are inaccurate, say things we do not feel, and talk nonsense. When we get home we are conscious that we have made fools of ourselves. Never go near these people.
What cardboard puppets are the creations of fiction compared with a common man or woman intimately known!
How much of what I say is an echo; how little is myself! Sometimes it seems as if my real self were nothing and that what stands for it were a mere miscellany of odds and ends picked up here and there. What a Self is the Jesus of the Gospels!
A cousin of mine had an evening class of poor girls. She was trying to explain to them the words ‘liquid’ and ‘solid.’
‘You walked over the bridge; it was a hard road.’
‘If you had gone down by the side of the bridge you could not have walked across there?’
‘If you were to try and were to put your feet on the water, where would you go?’
The association of the question, ‘Where would you go?’ was too strong.
This sunset, which is common to the whole county, is more to me than anything exclusively mine.
If emotion be profound, symbolism, as a means of expression, is indispensable.
There would be no objection to ‘telling the truth’ about Burns, Byron, and Shelley if it could be told. But it cannot be told. We are informed that they did this or that, and the thing they did is to us what it would be if done by ourselves.
We are most vain of that which is least ourselves, of that which is acquired, put on, stuck in. It is not correct to say that a woman is vain of her beauty.
Controversy is demoralising. Never suffer yourself to become an advocate. Never rely on controversy to convince. Say what you have to say and leave it. _Do_ it if you wish to persuade.
People are often unkind, not from malignity, but from ineptitude.
It is of the greatest importance continually to bear in mind that the violation of a law personal to myself is as immoral as the violation of a general law, and may be more mischievous.
To die is easy when we are in perfect health. On a fine spring morning, out of doors, on the downs, mind and body sound and exhilarated, it would be nothing to lie down on the turf and pass away.
What we want is wise counsel on particular occasions. Principles we can get by the bushel anywhere. The reason why our friends are so useless is that they will not take trouble. The selection and the application of the principle are difficult.