Affectations

It is a law of nature that we defend ourselves from one affectation only by means of another.

Veléry

VBA 23

Questions, not answers

In a work of art the intellect asks questions; it does not answer them.

Herbel

VBA p. 269

Liberty

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

Shaw

VBA p. 246

Tolerance

I have seen gross intolerance shown in support of tolerance.

Coleridge

VBA p. 140

Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.

Blake

VBA 212

When a man wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport: when the tiger wants to murder him, he calls it ferocity. The distinction between crime and justice is no greater.

Shaw

VBA 212

The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.

Beerbohm

VBA p. 111

Truth

Truth rests with God alone, and a little bit with me.

Yiddish proverb
VBA p. 76

Let us honour if we can
The vertical man
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.

W. H. Auden, Frontspiece to Poems 1927-1931

The true teacher

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.

Alcott

VBA p. 110

Mistakes

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

E. Hubbard
VBA p. 59

Happiness

We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.

La Rochefoucauld
VBA p. 20

...or it is only gossip.

You must see the infinite, i.e., the universal, in your particular, or it is only gossip.

O. W. Holmes, Jr.
(VBA p. 339)

An open mind

An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it. It should be capable of shutting its doors sometimes, or it may be found a little drafty.

Samuel Butler (II)
VBA p. 354