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.

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

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

If you happen to find it hard to have sustained conversations, try keeping your voice up at the end of the sentence. There is a charming graciousness in doing so, for it seems to say that you do not think your remarks are the last words to be said on the subject. It prevents you from seeming opinionated. How men dislike an opinionated woman! No one really likes her! To keep your voice up sounds as though you are interested in other people's ideas. The subject is still open!

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.

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.

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.