If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.

People are always a little disconcerted when you don't recognize them, they are so important to themselves, it is a shock to discover of what small importance they are to others. [The human element]

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.

All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dependents are very susceptible to slights, and, when they are not treated as they think they should be, will by well-directed shafts, constantly repeated, poison the minds of their patrons against those who have provoked their animosity. It is well to keep in with them.

It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future.

A man who is a politician at forty is a statesman at three score and ten. It is at this age, when he would be too old to be a clerk or a gardener or a police-court magistrate, that he is ripe to govern a country.

Thank God, I can look at a sunset now without having to think how to describe it