E. V. Lucas

Libraries...he does not much esteem. People should own their books, he holds ; but that, of course, is a counsel of perfection, or would be were it not for the multitude of reprints that are now to be had at the price of a cigar.

Virtue we still consider the best goal for others: but for ourselves, success. Success is the new god, and will be, I suppose, for some time yet, so zealously is the altar flame guarded.

So long as there are advertisements there cannot be absolutely free speech. It is not humanly possible.

Cynicism and self-esteem run through everything. Christian of course we never were, and never shall be, not even in adversity; but we are no longer in the least afraid of God.

Unhappily in England just now,...the type of journalist who seems to have most readers is permitted to be the least sagacious and the least independent.

His mind...with all its vigour and acumen, though naturally inclined to justice and courage, is about as capable of impartiality as a prize-fighter is capable of metaphysics.

The crying need for the moment in this country, as in America, is a gospel of poverty to cope with the gospel of riches that is vitiating society.

It was Henri Taine, I think, who said that there was no volume he could not compress into a chapter, and no chapter that would not go into a sentence. Dr. Giles has carried out Taine's thrasonical brag. There is no Chinese lifetime, …

The true Londoner cares no straw for sanitation. He thrives on ill conditions.

Not the least remarkable thing in this wonderful world in which we grope and have our being, is the amazing differences that can exist in the children of the same parents.

I have come to the conclusion that the golfing temperament is essentially aristocratic— a feudal inheritance — the property exclusively of those who can see nothing absurd or even degrading in the spectacle of powerful frivolous men being …

To Naomi's serene, sane mind the world has to be accepted as it is, and therefore she is always the same. Not that she considers everything perfect, but she has an instinctive realisation of the inevitability of imperfection which keeps …

The initial difficulty...having been slowly overcome...all went very smoothly, and the family quickly dropped company manners and showed me what it really was. Not that the difference was very marked, but a difference of course there …

The smell of autumnal woods, as well as of coffee roasting in the towns, is among the few things that the French arrange better than we.

In England it is a very dangerous handicap to have a sense of humour; and Whistler's levity had always stood in his way.

Americans are people who prefer the Continent to their own country, but refuse to learn its languages.

One must expect inconsistency. Every moment conditions are different, and therefore we are; every moment we are older, and there is less of life to live, and the thought can lead to odd impulses.

The special quality of the act of finding something, with its consequent exhilaration, is half unexpectedness and half separateness. There being no warning, and the article coming to you by chance, no one is to be thanked, no one to be …

The mere fact of never having a holiday is not in itself distressing. Holidays often are overrated disturbances of routine, costly and uncomfortable, and they usually need another holiday to correct their ravages.

I will admit to feeling exceedingly proud when any cat has singled me out for notice; for, of course, every cat is really the most beautiful woman in the room. That is part of their deadly fascination.

One of the most serious thoughts that life provokes is the reflection that we can never tell, at the time, whether a word, a look, a touch, an occurrence of any kind, is trivial or important.

There are moments when one is more ashamed of what is called culture than any one can ever be of ignorance.

I don't want to give it to you, so please take it quickly and hide it, or I shall ask for it back. It is a very sordid feeling, I admit; but if you also had the collector's temperament you would know that to give away anything is nearly an …

I hate to be reminded of the passage of time, and in a garden of flowers one can never escape from it. It is one of the charms of a garden of grass and evergreens, that there for a while one is allowed to hug the illusion that time tarries.