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.

Time is a friend - perhaps the best one we shall ever have. ... Time is a now - and there is only now. Memories look backward. Hope looks ahead. But there is in reality only now.

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.

Life pulls at bewildered humanity in so many ways! Blessed is the woman who makes her life a career of stimulating the courage of others.

Conversation is much like a tennis game except that in tennis you try to put the ball in the most difficult position for the one who must hit it - while in conversation you must try to put it where it will be easy to hit.

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

So few people can think and talk at the same time.