Great men are but life-sized. Most of them, indeed, are rather short.

Heroes are very human, most of them; very easily touched by praise.

The hospitable instinct is not wholly altruistic. There is pride and egoism mixed up with it.

When hospitality becomes an art, it loses its very soul.

Somehow, our sense of justice never turns in its sleep till long after the sense of injustice in others has been thoroughly aroused.

Of all the countless folk who have lived before our time on this planet not one is known in history or in legend as having died of laughter.

There is in the human race some dark spirit of recalcitrance, always pulling us in the direction contrary to that in which we are reasonably expected to go.

Not philosophy, after all, not humanity, just sheer joyous power of song, is the primal thing in poetry.

Reverence is a good thing, and part of its value is that the more we revere a man, the more sharply are we struck by anything in him (and there is always much) that is incongruous with his greatness.

Improvisation is the essence of good talk. Heaven defend us from the talker who doles out things prepared for us! But let heaven not less defend us from the beautifully spontaneous writer who puts his trust in the inspiration of the moment!