It is refreshing to find a philosopher who is wise enough to be happy.

Doubt, however honest, cannot take the place of belief.

Revolution, like death and style, is the removal of rubbish, the surgery of the superfluous; it comes when many things are ready to die.

Art is significance rendered with feeling through form; but the feeling must accept discipline, and the form must have structure and meaning, even if the meaning outreach the realm of words.

The world honors form as well as substance, art as well as knowledge and power.

The lives of great men all remind us how brief is immortality.

Any historian who strains his pen to prove a thesis may be trusted to distort the truth.

All religions are superstitions to other faiths.

Laws are vain when hearts are unchanged.

We cannot judge past beauty by present ruins.

A shallow sophistication prides itself upon its pessimism and cynicism.

Civilization is rural in base but urban in form; men must gather in cities to provide for one another audiences and stimuli.

The same variety and freedom of exchange that enables the clever to make money allows the simple to lose it faster than before.

Honesty is the best policy, but it must be practiced with discrimination.

The first lesson of philosophy is that we cannot be wise about everything. We are fragments in infinity and moments in eternity; for such forked atoms to describe the universe, or the Supreme Being, must make the planets tremble with mirth.

To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.

There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

It is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works.

There is to be no hesitation; no time to allow them to grasp the situation. Once we are in a position to give orders, why, give them as though you were born to do so, and they'll obey out of habit. That's the essence of a coup.

Flattery is useful when dealing with youngsters—particularly when it doesn't commit you to anything.

It is an odd fact that anyone who wishes to start a war must always make it appear that he is fighting in a just cause even if the real motive is naked aggression. Fortunately for the would-be aggressor, a "just cause" is very easy to find.

Truth is a discredited commodity among diplomats.

Childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child.

Q. Can the overall history of the human race be changed? A. Yes. Q. Easily? A. No. With great difficulty.

I am not one be frightened at words. It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly, and I have never turned my back upon one yet.

Even if the Enemy be thrown down, we shall not live to see a new age. But this, I deem, is our duty. And better so to perish nonetheless—as we surely shall, if we sit here—and know as we die that no new age shall be.

Do not spoil wonder with haste!

It must often be so when things are in danger: someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.

It seems less evil to counsel another man to break troth than to do so oneself, especially if one sees a friend bound unwitting to his own harm.

Many folk like to know beforehand what is to be set on the table; but those who have laboured to prepare the feast like to keep their secret; for wonder makes the words of praise louder.