While once it was the rank and file that cheered with all the partisan passions at their heights, today it is the party leaders who are cheering themselves; and all by themselves. The mob that is their audience is in one vast universal trance, thinking about something else.

I am not fighting a hopeless fight. People who have fought in real fights don't, as a rule.

The professional soldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a community declines.

Surprise is the secret of joy.

Women have a thirst for order and beauty as for something physical; there is a strange female power of hating ugliness and waste as good men can only hate sin and bad men virtue.

No man must be superior to the things that are common to men.... Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.

I have formed a very clear conception of patriotism. I have generally found it thrust into the foreground by some fellow who has something to hide in the background. I have seen a great deal of patriotism; and I have generally found it the last refuge of the scoundrel.