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

A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.

A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.

The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.

Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.

Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.

Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

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.

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

We make our fortunes and we call them fate.

Many are willing that Christ should be something, but few will consent that Christ should be everything.

The great artist is one whom constraint exalts, for whom the obstacle is a springboard.

Look at self-satisfied pop singers or greasy, semi-literate athletes. People worship them. Why?” "Because they’re talented.

An inability to choose is a hallmark of anxiety... The too-anxious artist, afraid to choose, will halt dead in the water.

No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.

Dr. Flint had sworn that he would make me suffer, to my last day, for this new crime against him, as he called it; and as long as he had me in his power he kept his word

Audacity augments courage; hesitation, fear.

How did it come to be that you think men and women are the same? Well, there's a simple answer to the question: Feminism.

I'd like to sell a lot of books.