"I am certainly an ought and not a must." — E. M. Forster

I distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood too, and I always feel a little man's pleasure when they come a cropper.

One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.

We are all like Scheherazade's husband, in that we want to know what happens next.

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal.

The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.

History develops, art stands still.

Letters have to pass two tests before they can be classed as good: they must express the personality both of the writer and of the recipient.

One is certain of nothing but the truth of one's own emotions.

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I am certainly an ought and not a must.