Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance.
The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide. If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.
Their mother is Athene, the goddess of wisdom, and, although they are often ready to play the buffoon to amuse you, such conduct is the prerogative of the truly wise.
There are no boundaries among the geese. How can you have boundaries if you fly?
When shall I be dead and rid Of all the wrong my father did? How long, how long ’till spade and hearse Put to sleep my mother’s curse?
Perhaps he does not want to be friends with you until he knows what you are like. With owls, it is never easy-come-easy-go.
In war, our elders may give the orders…but it is the young who have to fight.
Those who lived by the sword were forced to die by it.
It is a pity that there are no big creatures to prey on humanity. If there were enough dragons and rocs, perhaps mankind would turn its might against them. Unfortunately man is preyed upon by microbes, which are too small to be appreciated.
War is like a fire. One man may start it, but it will spread all over. It is not about one thing in particular.
It has to be admitted that starving nations never seem to be quite so starving that they cannot afford to have far more expensive armaments than anybody else.
The race will find that capitalists and communists modify themselves so much during the ages that they end by being indistinguishable as democrats…
He fancied himself on his humanity towards animals, as so many people do who are inhuman to their fellow men…
He felt in his heart cruelty and cowardice, the things which made him brave and kind.
It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible.
It is good to put your life in other people’s hands.
I would recommend a solo flight to all prospective suicides. It tends to make clear the issue of whether one enjoys being alive or not.
It was at the outskirts of the world that the Old Things accumulated, like driftwood round the edges of the sea. (“The Troll”)
At this the Wart’s eyes grew rounder and rounder, until they were about as big as the owl’s who was sitting on his shoulder, and his face got redder and redder, and a breath seemed to gather itself beneath his heart.
The only way I can keep clear of force is by justice. Far from being willing to execute his enemies, a real king must be willing to execute his friends.
The author says people are guilty of “wrecking the present because the future was bound to be a wreck.
It is only people who are lacking, or bad, or inferior, who have to be good at things. You have always been full and perfect, so you had nothing to make up for.
So Merlyn sent you to me,” said the badger, “to finish your education. Well, I can only teach you two things — to dig, and love your home. These are the true end of philosophy.
Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit of comforting themselves for their degradation by pretending that children are childish.
People will do the basest things on account of their so-called honor.
He had conquered murder only to be faced with war. There were no laws for that.
Middle-aged people can balance between believing in God and breaking all the commandments without difficulty.
Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: for love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury.
It is the bad people who need to have principles to restrain them.
I can imagine nothing more terrifying than an Eternity filled with men who were all the same. The only thing which has made life bearable…has been the diversity of creatures on the surface of the globe.
Mordred and Agravaine thought Arthur hypocritical—as all decent men must be, if you assume that decency can’t exist.
The increasingly cynical court thought Arthur, “hypocritical, as all decent men must be if you assume decency cannot exist.
Even his conversation was, as it were, a spoken part.
It is generally the trustful and optimistic people who can afford to retreat. The loveless and faithless ones are compelled by their pessimism to attack.