A realist is a man who insists on making the same mistakes his grandfather did.

The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation.

The unfortunate are always egotistical.

You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

Why should one say that the machine does not live? It breathes, for its breath forms the atmosphere of some towns.

The constitution of England is not a paper constitution. It is an aggregate of institutions, many of them founded merely upon prescription, some of them fortified by muniments, but all of them the fruit and experience of an ancient and illustrious people.

You asked me where I generally lived. In my workshop [i.e. in his study] in the mornings and always in the library in the evening. Books are companions even if you don’t open them.