E. V. Lucas

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.

She doesn't love you because of anything — she loves. She doesn't care whether you are handsome or ugly, or old or young, or cruel or kind, or strong or weak, or conceited Or humble, whether you drop your h's, or have nothing in the bank — those things are beside the mark, because she loves.

"What is it like in the air?" I once asked him. </br> "Ripping," he said. </br> "But the sensations?” I continued. “How do you feel?" </br> "Ripping," he said. </br> "And what does the world look like down below as you rush along?" </br> "Ripping," he said.

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, however crowded and illustrious, that he cannot pack into a paragraph or a page.

After my experiences I know that it is not the disposal of books that presents the greatest difficulty to a bookseller, but the acquisition of them.

The man who is so painstakingly cautious about doing his own body no harm seldom does anything for anyone else.

The world is a great leveller, and every year brings with it certain modifying influences. I like a man to be his age. Twenty-one is not an age I am very partial to: it is omniscient and exorbitant and cruel; but I like a youth of twenty-one none the less. Forty makes better company: when a man knows how little he knows, and how little life holds for him, and is yet unsubdued.

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.

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

Have misfortune and disease and frustration and insecurity been necessary to man's ingenuity and industry? Without sorrow should we have had no telegraph? without tears, no camera? Have all the benefits of civilisation been wrung from us in some effort to escape from the blows of fate? And even if so, might not happiness, without the advantages of progress, have still been better?

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.

What can become of book-hunting...if everything is reprinted in uniform binding for a shilling or sixpence?

This little book...is just a garland of good or enkindling poetry and prose fitted to urge folk into the open air...with perhaps a phrase or two for the feet to step to and the mind to brood on when the rest is over.

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 impossibility, and to give away anything without regretting it is quite an impossibility.

The art of life...is to show your hand. There is no diplomacy like candour. You may lose by it now and then, but it will be a loss well gained if you do. Nothing is so boring as having to keep up a deception.