'When an alluring woman comes in at the door,' warningly traced the austere Kien-fi on the margin of his well-known essay, 'discretion may be found up the chimney'. It is incredible that beneath this ever-timely reminder an obscure disciple should have added the words: 'The wiser the sage, the more profound the folly.'

Better a dish of husks to the accompaniment of a muted lute than to be satiated with stewed shark's fin and rich spiced wine of which the cost is frequently me…

Ernest Bramah's China, then, is the fantastic bogus China of convention, not the real historical thing at all. He wrote of it in a prose so perfectly conceived…

One may ride upon a tiger's back but it is fatal to dismount.

Let a fool be made serviceable according to his folly.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

She had that irony in her eyes. Knowledge without wisdom. Power without purpose. Like me.