As I got warmed up, and felt perfectly at home in talk, I heard myself boasting, lying, exaggerating. Oh, not deliberately, far from it. It would be unconvivial and dull to stop and arrest the flow of talk, and speak only after carefully considering whether I was telling the truth.

Government lasts as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.

Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity.

International affairs will be placed on a better footing when it is understood that there is no way of punishing a people for the crimes of its rulers.

Not what man knows but what man feels, concerns art. All else is science.

Government is the art of the momentary feasible, of the least bad attainable, and not of the rationally most desirable.

Pessimism like calumny is easy to do, and attracts immediate attention. The gossiper and the writer may find this out soon enough, and a little encouragement from the current mood will procure them successes that bring endless imitators in their trail. On the other hand saying good things about life in general and individuals in particular and making it interesting is a serious task which few can achieve with credit.