He never labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue, and it affected him for life. The habit of reticence — of talking without meaning — is never effaced.

A friend in power is a friend lost.

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught.

The habit of expression leads to the search for something to express. Something remains as a residuum of the commonplace itself, if one strikes out every commonplace in the expression.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. The imagination must be given not wings but weights.

The study of history is useful to the historian by teaching him his ignorance of women.

The tourist was the great conservative who hated novelty and adored dirt.

Philosophy . . .consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

He supposed that, except musicians, every one thought Beethoven a bore, as every one except mathematicians thought mathematics a bore.

Regret for time wasted can become a power for good in the time that remains if we will only stop the waste and the idle useless regretting.

When one clings to the myth of superiority one must constantly overlook the virtues and abilities of others.

...joy takes a strange effect at times, it seems to oppress us almost the same as sorrow.

I've always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.

The highest virtue is not virtuous. Therefore it has virtue. The lowest virtue holds on to virtue. Therefore it has no virtue.

Never have I met a person doing terrible things who would meet my own eyes peacefully. To gaze into another person's face is to do two things: to recognize their humanity, and to assert your own.

So, then, let us pursue the things making for peace and the things that are upbuilding to one another.

If I were a person who was non-American, I would think humanitarian intervention is just another name for United States imperialism.

There is nothing more beautiful than nature early in the morning.

When remedies are past, the griefs are ended By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.