Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.
Always remember, that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.
To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them – peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.
Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.
We have not journeyed all this way because we are made of sugar candy.
The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.
The maxim, “Nothing prevails but perfection,” may be spelled PARALYSIS.
No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.
The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.
A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.
What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.
The British nation is unique in this respect: they are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst.
I am easily satisfied with the very best.
The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity.
I am a man of simple tastes easily satisfied with the best.
He’s a humble man with much to be humble about.
Safari, so goody.
Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Of this I am certain, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.