they're the sort of people one invites to lunch or tea, but never to dinner.

People will invite you and seek you constantly if you learn how to give them the extreme pleasure of being clever. People adore the one who encourages them to display their conversational wares and admires the display.

If Democracy should fail, it would be because we had been so lacking in self-discipline that our personal problems had taken all our substance and energies, leaving us nothing of value to contribute to the commonwealth.

they're the sort of people one invites to lunch or tea, but never to dinner.

a diplomat ... is not worthy of the name unless he can say 'no' and make the other person like it - or at least not be offended by it.

The hope of any nation lies in the personal qualities of its individual members.

No one could have been more surprised than I at my successes, and yet deep within me there was acknowledgment that had I not succeeded, I would have been equally surprised.