the breed is more than the pasture. As you know, the cuckoo lays her eggs in any bird's nest; it may be hatched among blackbirds or robins or thrushes, but it is always a cuckoo. ... a man cannot deliver himself from his ancestors.

One should not run on a new road.

politicians ... turn patriotism into shopkeeping and their own interest - men who care far more for who governs us than for how we are governed.. And what will be the end of such ways? I will tell you. We shall have a Democracy that will be the reign of those who know the least and talk the loudest.

Death is like the setting of the sun. The sun never sets; life never ceases. ... we think the sun sets, and it never ceases shining; we think our friends die, and they never cease living.

What we buy, and pay for, is part of ourselves.

This world is run with far too tight a rein for luck to interfere. Fortune sells her wares; she never gives them. In some form or other, we pay for her favors; or we go empty away.

A poverty that is universal may be cheerfully borne; it is an individual poverty that is painful and humiliating.