When shall I be dead and rid Of all the wrong my father did? How long, how long ’till spade and hearse Put to sleep my mother’s curse?

She hardly ever thought of him. He had worn a place for himself in some corner of her heart, as a sea shell, always boring against the rock, might do. The making of the place...

My father always used to tell one of his dreams, because it somehow seemed of a piece with what was to follow. He believed that it was a consequence of the thing’s presence in the...

In war, our elders may give the orders…but it is the young who have to fight.

So Merlyn sent you to me,” said the badger, “to finish your education. Well, I can only teach you two things — to dig, and love your home. These are the true end of philosophy.

Oh, what a lovely owl!” Cried the Wart.But when he went up to it and held out his hand, the owl grew half as tall again, stood up as stiff as a poker, closed its...

Kings can only use their best tools.

Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope,...

It was at the outskirts of the world that the Old Things accumulated, like driftwood round the edges of the sea. (“The Troll”)

Those who lived by the sword were forced to die by it.

He had conquered murder only to be faced with war. There were no laws for that.

Was it the wicked leaders who led innocent populations to slaughter, or was it wicked populations who chose leaders after their own hears? On the face of it, it seemed unlikely that one Leader could...

Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: for love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this...

EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY

But there was a time when each of us stood naked before the world, confronting life as a serious problem with which we were intimately and passionately concerned. There was a time when it was...

It is a pity that there are no big creatures to prey on humanity. If there were enough dragons and rocs, perhaps mankind would turn its might against them. Unfortunately man is preyed upon by...

Any one war seems rooted in its antecedents.

Man must be ready to say: Yes, since Cain there has been injustice, but we can only set the misery right if we accept a status quo. Lands have been robbed, men slain, nations humiliated....

He did not himself believe in the supernatural, but the thing happened, and he proposed to tell it as simply as possible. It was stupid of him to say that it shook his faith in...

Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance.

At this the Wart’s eyes grew rounder and rounder, until they were about as big as the owl’s who was sitting on his shoulder, and his face got redder and redder, and a breath seemed...

There is one fairly good reason for fighting – and that is, if the other man starts it. You see, wars are a great wickedness, perhaps the greatest wickedness of a wicked species. They are...

He thought himself awake when he was already asleep. He saw the stars above his face, whirling on their silent and sleepless axis, and the leaves of the trees rustling against them, and he heard...

And do you know another thing, Arthur? Life is too bitter already, without territories and wars and noble feuds.

Mordred and Agravaine thought Arthur hypocritical—as all decent men must be, if you assume that decency can’t exist.

If people reach perfection they vanish, you know.

Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit of comforting themselves for their degradation by pretending that children are childish.

War is like a fire. One man may start it, but it will spread all over. It is not about one thing in particular.

The bravest people are the ones who don’t mind looking like cowards.

Sometimes, we give the best of our hearts uncritically – to those who hardly think of us in return.

The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.

He caught a glimpse of that extraordinary faculty in man, that strange, altruistic, rare, and obstinate decency which will make writers or scientists maintain their truths at the risk of death. Eppur si muove, Galileo...

The only way I can keep clear of force is by justice. Far from being willing to execute his enemies, a real king must be willing to execute his friends.

There was just such a man when I was young—an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his...

I can imagine nothing more terrifying than an Eternity filled with men who were all the same. The only thing which has made life bearable…has been the diversity of creatures on the surface of the...

It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible.

Even his conversation was, as it were, a spoken part.

Their mother is Athene, the goddess of wisdom, and, although they are often ready to play the buffoon to amuse you, such conduct is the prerogative of the truly wise.

It is only people who are lacking, or bad, or inferior, who have to be good at things. You have always been full and perfect, so you had nothing to make up for.

It has to be admitted that starving nations never seem to be quite so starving that they cannot afford to have far more expensive armaments than anybody else.

Middle-aged people can balance between believing in God and breaking all the commandments without difficulty.

Finally, there was the impediment of his nature. In the secret parts of his peculiar brain, those unhappy and inextricable tangles which he felt at the roots, the boy was disabled by something which we...

Poor Cook, thought Captain, I must be kinder to her. She makes a splendid pet. How faithful she is! I always say you can’t get the same love from a dog that you can from...

Love is a trick played on us by the forces of evolution. Pleasure is the bait laid down by the same. There is only power. Power is of the individual mind but the mind’s power...

These marvels were great and comfortable ones, but in the old England there was a greater still. The weather behaved itself.In the spring all the little flowers came out obediently in the meads, and the...

The best thing for disturbances of the spirit is to learn. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening...

The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may...

The author says people are guilty of “wrecking the present because the future was bound to be a wreck.

The race will find that capitalists and communists modify themselves so much during the ages that they end by being indistinguishable as democrats…

Perhaps man was neither good nor bad, was only a machine in an insensate universe–his courage no more than a reflex to danger, like the automatic jump at the pin-prick. Perhaps there were no virtues,...