A. C. Benson Quotations

Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene.

When you get to my age life seems little more than one long march to and from the lavatory.

The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortunes, but its fears.

People seldom refuse help, if one offers it in the right way.

I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.

One's mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes clear what one means to do.

As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow.

Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.

All the best stories are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

I am sure it is one's duty as a teacher to try to show boys that no opinions, no tastes, no emotions are worth much unless they are one's own. I suffered acutely as a boy from the lack of being shown this.

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

A well begun is half ended.

The joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet for the soul to open on her upward and inward way.

I don't like authority, at least I don't like other people's authority.

People who deal with life generously and large-heartedly go on multiplying relationships to the end.

A diary need not be a dreary chronicle of one's movements; it should aim rather at giving salient account of some particular episode, a walk, a book, a conversation.

What a strange power the perception of beauty is! It seems to ebb and flow like some secret tide, independent alike of health and disease, of joy or sorrow. There are times in our lives when we seem to go singing on our way, and when the beauty of the world sets itself like a quiet harmony to the song we uplift.

Keeping up appearances is the most expensive thing in the world.

Because of a friend, life is a little stronger, fuller, more gracious thing for the friend's existence, whether he be near or far. If the friend is close at hand, that is best; but if he is far away he still is there to think of, to wonder about, to hear from, to write to, to share life and experience with, to serve, to honor, to admire, to love.

I believe in instinct, not reason. When reason is right, nine times out of ten it is impotent, and when it prevails, nine times out of ten it is wrong.

I expect that all of us get pretty much what we deserve of appreciation.

Readjusting is a painful process, but most of us need it at one time or another.

It is often wonderful how putting down on paper a clear statement of a case helps one to see, not perhaps the way out, but the way in.

I have known some quite good people who were unhappy, but never an interested person who was unhappy.

I never enter a new company without the hope that I may discover a friend, perhaps the friend, sitting there with an expectant smile. That hope survives a thousand disappointments.

There remain times when one can only endure. One lives on, one doesn't die, and the only thing that one can do, is to fill one's mind and time as far as possible with the concerns of other people. It doesn't bring immediate peace, but it brings the dawn nearer.

The friend is the person whom one is in need of and by whom one is needed.

Congenial labor is the secret of happiness.

Congenial labor is essence of happiness.

The moment that any life, however good, stifles you, you may be sure it isn't your real life.

I think I feel rather differently about sympathy to what seems the normal view. I like just to feel it is there, but not always expressed.

Do you know the times when one seems to stick fast in circumstances like the fly in the jam-pot? It can't be helped, and I suppose the best thing to do is to lay in a good store of jam!

The test of a good letter is a very simple one. If one seems to hear the other person talking as one reads, it is a good letter.

It seems sometimes as if one were powerless to do any more from within to overcome troubles, and that help must come from without.