Bokelskere.no

But how people have got on is actually only interesting to the country which has got on. What foreign visitors care about are the things that were there before they began to get on.

Travelling together is a great test, which has damaged many friendships...

The English landscape at its finest – such as I saw this morning – possesses a quality that the landscapes of other nations, however more superficially dramatic, inevitably fail to possess.

People know about quite different things, and this often makes conversation difficult.

My favourite [...] is painting water-colour sketches to illustrate travel books, which is a good way to get abroad, a thing I like doing better than anything else, for I agree with those who have said that travel is the chief end of life.

Kristendommen med sin selvfornektelseslære er bare en ufullkommen efterligning av buddhismen.

I mitt trette hode arbeider for tiden en Sisyfos ved dag og ved natt. Han velter den ene og samme tankes sten ustanselig, velter den og slipper den igjen, velter den og slipper den, bestandig uopphørlig, til min hjerne gløder.

Først da er en mann helt fornøyd med seg selv, når han føler seg beundret av en kvinne.

Vennskap er den fineste art av egoisme, meget finere enn kjærlighet f.eks.; man vil da bare ete hinannen åndelig.

Ikke à la Romeo. Ikke à la Werther. Det er det føle ved å være over 30 år: at ens kjærlighet ikke lenger er blind.

The remaining space was occupied with a few selected books and three or four writing-pads - for he was a man who did not neglect his literary hobby when on holiday.

Har det aldri slått deg at hvis du møter folk med smil og vennlighet, så er det stor sannsynlighet for at du blir møtt med det samme tillbake? At folk vil se på deg med de samme øynene som du ser på dem med?

Vi speidet begge ut mot horisonten, betraktet den enorme, gåtefulle himmelen og stilte oss selv de samme spørsmålene som menneskeheten har stilt siden tidenes morgen. De spørsmålene endrer seg aldri, og vi var ennå ikke kommet nærmere å finne noen svar. Svarene ville forbli utenfor vår fatteevne så lenge vi forsøkte å forklare alt mulig ved hjelp av intellektet. Mens eg skuet utover den rene,naturlige skjønnheten, innså jeg at den eneste veien til overhodet å begynne å forstå hva det dreide seg om, gikk gjennom hjertet.

He was supposed to be rather a good person to have in the house, because he never stopped talking. Had it been possible to cover him over with a piece of green baize, like a canary, when one had had enough, he would have been even more desirable.

The house had not been used since Easter, and wore that indescribable look of uninhabitableness which results from a thorough house-cleaning. Everything, even in the irregular hall, looked angular and uncomfortable; chairs were set square to tables; tables were set at mathematically precise angles; blinds were all drawn down exactly four inches from the tops of the windows; and all the books were in their shelves.

It was all too tidy to have been lived in, and, therefore, too tidy to live in...