Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue.

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.

But self-satisfaction, if as buoyant as gas, has an ugly trick of collapsing when full blown, and facts are stony things that refuse to melt away in the sunshine of a smile.

the pleasure of possession, whether we possess trinkets, or offspring - or possibly books, or prints, or chessmen, or postage stamps - lies in showing these things to friends who are experiencing no immediate urge to look at them.

The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without them.

The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.