Sublime

very little achievement is required in order to pity another man’s shortcomings.

Maynard Keynes, and Mr H. G. Wells,

history is littered with the corpses of those who from known facts have deduced wrongful – and occasionally disastrous – conclusions.

“And now, I am sorry, I must kill most of you.”

“Georgie is one of the best generals I have. But he’s just like a time bomb. You never know when he’s going to go off. All you can be sure of is that it will probably be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”73

If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen. —Fyodor Dostoevsky

one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could

‘How good of you to come,’ said Sir Joseph, seating Stephen by the fire in what was clearly his library, study and drawing-room; it was comfortable, even luxurious, in the style of fifty years before; and cases of butterflies alternated with pornographic pictures on the walls – emphatically a private house.

To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.