Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.

It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations.

History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world have a chance for it.

Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone: but what we have requires no proof.

So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.

Not only does a bureaucracy tend to under-government in point of quality; it tends to over-government in point of quantity.

One cannot make men good by Act of Parliament.