The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.

Photographs have the kind of authority over imagination to-day, which the printed word had yesterday, and the spoken word before that. They seem utterly real. They come, we imagine, directly to us without human meddling, and they are the most effortless food for the mind conceivable.

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.

Politicians tend to live "in character" and many a public figure has come to imitate the journalism that describes him.

The devil is merely a fallen angel, and when God lost Satan he lost one of his best lieutenants.

Men fall into a routine when they are tired and slack: it has all the appearance of activity with few of its burdens.

A man who has humility will have acquired in the last reaches of his beliefs the saving doubt of his own certainty.