If Despotism failed only for want of a capable benevolent despot, what chance has Democracy, which requires a whole population of capable voters.

We have in England a curious belief in first-rate people, meaning all the people we do not know; and this consoles us for the undeniable second-rateness of the people we do know.

When your eyes are fixed in the stare of unconsciousness, and your throat coughs the last gasping breath - as one dragged in the dark to a great precipice - what assistance are a wife and child?

I must remind you that our credulity is not to be measured by the truth of the things we believe. When men believed that the earthwas flat, they were not credulous: they were using their common sense, and, if asked to prove that the earth was flat, would have said simply, "Look at it." Those who refuse to believe that it is round are exercising a wholesome skepticism.

Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.

I have found, after a good deal of consideration, that the best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for Him here.

I never climbed any ladder: I have achieved eminence by sheer gravitation.