No doubt there are other important things in life besides conflict, but there are not many other things so inevitably interesting. The very saints interest us most when we think of them as enganged in a conflict with the Devil.

Robert Lynd

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.

A man has only to murder a series of wives in a new way to become known to millions of people who have never heard of Homer.

Friendship will not stand the strain of very much good advice for... by Robert Lynd

Friendship will not stand the strain of very much good advice for very long.

There are two sorts of curiosity -- the momentary and the permanent. The momentary is concerned with the odd appearance on the surface of things. The permanent is attracted by the amazing and consecutive life that flows on beneath the surface of things.

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.