Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.

The sea has formed the English character and the essential England is to be found in those who follow it. From blue waters they have learned mercifulness, and they have also learned - in the grimmest of schools - precision and resolution. The sea endures no makeshifts. If a thing is not exactly right it will be vastly wrong.

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.

Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.

You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.

History gives us a kind of chart, and we dare not surrender even a small rushlight in the darkness. The hasty reformer who does not remember the past will find himself condemned to repeat it.

He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.