I expect America's worse.īut one mark of a writer's greatness is that different minds can find in him different opinions. That's because it's a democratic country. You can't think as you like and you can't act as you like.

But in England you get neither: you're ground down by convention. I personally prefer the freedom of thought. In Germany you must do what everybody does, but you may think as choose. In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think as anybody else. You know, there are two good things in life, the freedom of thought and the freedom of action. In schools the rather stupid boys who work always do better than the clever boy who's idle. One hasn't time to bother anything but the average. The holes are all round, and whatever shape the pegs are they must wedge in somehow. Of course schools are made for the average.

He satisfied his conscience by the more comfortable method of expressing his repentance only to the Almighty. he was beginning to realize that he was the creature of a God who appreciated the discomfort of his worshippers. Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment. » Add other authors (46 possible) Author name

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham