Probably one of the reasons why gushing is so unattractive is that it leaves nothing for the listener to do.

To be alive is sufficient evidence that we are needed in the world. Otherwise we wouldn't be here.

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.

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.

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

The very thing that seems to impede your progress can often be turned to account for you.

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.