Norman Douglas

If you want to see what children can do, you must stop giving them things.

Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern for his friends.

The sublimity of wisdom is to do those things living, which are to be desired when dying.

Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes.

Never take a solemn oath. People think you mean it.

You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do.

A man can believe a considerable deal of rubbish, and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner.

The pine stays green in winter... wisdom in hardship.

A man can believe a considerable deal of rubbish and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner.

It takes a wise man to handle a lie. A fool had better remain honest.

Justice is too good for some people and not good enough for the rest.

It seldom pays to be rude. It never pays to be only half-rude.

The business of life is to enjoy oneself everything else is a mockery.

Why always "not yet"? Do flowers in spring say "not yet"?

To find a friend one must close one eye. To keep him ... two.

A man can believe in a considerable deal of rubbish and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner.

I think modern education over-emphasizes the intellect. I suppose that comes from the scientific trend of the times. You cannot obtain a useful citizen if you only develop his intellect. We take children from their parents because these cannot give them an intellectual training. So far, good. But we fail to give them that training in character which parents alone can give. Home influence, as Grace Aguilar conceived it " where has it gone? It strikes me that this is a grave danger for the future. We are rearing up a brood of crafty egoists, a generation whose earliest recollections are those of getting something for nothing from the State.I am inclined to trace our present social unrest to this over-valuation of the intellect. It hardens the heart and blights all generous impulses. What is going to replace the home, Mr. Keith?

The land is encrusted with ephemeral human conceits. That is not altogether good for a youngster; it disarranges his mind and puts him out of harmony with what is permanent. Just listen a moment. Here, if you are wise, you will seek an antidote. Taken in over-dose, all these churches and pictures and books and other products of our species are toxins for a boy like you. They falsify your cosmic values. Try to be more of an animal. Try to extract pleasure from more obvious sources. Lie fallow for a while. Forget all these things. Go out into the midday glare. Sit among rocks and by the sea. Have a look at the sun and stars for a change; they arc just as impressive as Donatello. Find yourself! You know the Cave of Mercury? Climb down, one night of full moon, all alone, and rest at its entrance. Familiarize yourself with elemental things. The whole earth reeks of humanity and its works. One has to be old and tough to appraise them at their true worth. Tell people to go to Hell, Denis, with their altar-pieces and museums and clock- towers and funny little art-galleries.