Wherever on this planet ideals of personal freedom and dignity apply, there you will find the cultural inheritance of England.

Gentlemen, four-fifths of the earth's surface is covered by seas; that is unquestionably too much; the world's surface, the map of oceans and dry land, must be corrected. We shall give the world the workforce of the sea, gentlemen. This will no longer be the style of Captain van Toch; we shall replace the adventure story of pearls by the hymnic paean of labour.

If dogs could talk, perhaps we would find it as hard to get along with them as we do with people.

Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for, so much that he will be called a relativist because of it.

Quite obviously a cat trusts human beings; but she doesn't trust another cat because she knows better than we do.

A short life is better for mankind, for a long life would deprive man of his optimism.

It suddenly occurred to me that every move on the chessboard is old and has been played by somebody at some time. Maybe our own history has been played out by somebody at some time, and we just move our pieces about in the same moves to strike in the same way as people have always done.