Our universe cannot even be stated symbolically. And this touches us all more directly than one might suppose. For example, artists, who have been very little influenced by social systems, have always responded instinctively to latent assumptions about the shape of the universe. The incomprehensibility of our new cosmos seems to me, ultimately, to be the reason for the chaos of modern art.

Sweeping, confident articles on the future seem to me, intellectually, the most disreputable of all forms of public utterance.

One musn't overrate the culture of what used to be called 'top people' before the wars. They had charming manners, but they were as ignorant as swans.

We are so much accustomed to the humanitarian outlook that we forget how little it counted in earlier ages of civilisation. Ask any decent person in England or…