Too much brilliance has its disadvantages, and misplaced wit may raise a laugh, but often beheads a topic of profound interest.

Convictions no doubt have to be modified or expanded to meet changing conditions but ... to be a reliable political leader sooner or later your anchors must hold fast where other men's drag.

Too much brilliance has its disadvantages, and misplaced wit may raise a laugh, but often beheads a topic of profound interest.

The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue. . . . There is a perpetual interference with personal liberty over there that would not be tolerated in England for a week.

[On spiritualism:] I always knew the living talked rot, but it's nothing to the rot the dead talk.

I have been devoured all my life by an incurable and burning impatience: and to this day find all oratory, biography, operas, films, plays, books, and persons, too long.

She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake.