The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience. [On diplomatic recognition of the People's Republic of China]

It is not given to princes, statesmen and captains to pierce the mysteries of the future, and even the most penetrating gaze reaches only conclusions which, however seemingly vindicated at a given moment, are inexorably effaced by time.

A hopeful disposition is not the sole qualification to be a prophet.

Never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

At the beginning of this War megalomania was the only form of sanity.

I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which lead to a dark gulf.

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.