All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

But the thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit.

In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

The secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with a power to learn from past mistakes.

From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is.

High sentiments always win in the end. The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.