Most people die with their music still locked up inside them.

You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say, you can have no Parliamentary government if you have no party government; and, therefore, when gentlemen denounce party government, they strike at the scheme of government which, in my opinion, has made this country great, and which I hope will keep it great.

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.

There is no index of character so sure as the voice.

The originality of a subject is in its treatment.

Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.

The services in wartime are fit only for desperadoes, but in peace are only fit for fools.