The influence of friendship upon culture differs from that of love, in that it assumes the basic idiosyncrasies of personal taste to be unalterable. … - John Cowper Powys

Instead of pausing in our multifarious activities, instead of putting aside our laborious quests, we are being perpetually fooled into thinking that happiness is to be reached in the same way as pleasure is, by the possession of something.

"A limit there must be," thought Sam, "to the sympathy one soul can give to other souls — or all would perish."

I read a Russian book once, Barter, by that man whose name begins with D, and a character there says he believes in God but rejects God's World. Now I feel just the opposite! I think the whole of God's World is infinitely to be pitied — tortured and torturers alike — but I think that God Himself, the great Living God, responsible for it all, the powerful Creator who deliberately gave such reptiles, such sharks, such hyænas, such jackals as we are, this accursed gift of Free Will, ought to have such a Cancer