I had been in London innumerable times, and yet till that day I had never noticed one of the worst things about London-the fact that it costs money even to sit down.

The mistake you make, don't you see,is in thinking one can live in a corrupt society without being corrupt oneself. After all, what do you achieve by refusing to make money? You're trying to behave as though one could stand right outside our economic system. But one can't. One's got to change the system, or one changes nothing. One can't put things right in a hole-and-corner way, if you take my meaning.

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

Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip.

You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one.

I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.

He would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.