“I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.”

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest;

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.

William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.

The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.

The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.

Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.

We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.

You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

There is moderation even in excess.

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

Cessation of work is not accompanied by cessation of expenses

I am a person who has many dreams. But as soon as I accomplish one, I move on to the next. That’s my fatal, absurd nature. Human beings are slaves to our dreams, and I am, too. Now I think I just want to share my musical proposal in its entire form.

If I’m among men who don’t agree at all with my nature, I will hardly be able to accommodate myself to them without greatly changing myself.

I’m just saying the producers and people who work on music are getting left out – that’s when it starts getting criminal. It’s like you’re working hard, and you’re not receiving. In any other business, people would be standing before Congress. They have antitrust laws against this kind of behavior.

One of the challenges of commencement speeches is that you have this older, wiser person who is accomplished talking to young, not-yet-so-wise, not-yet-accomplished adults or, in high school or middle school, even younger.

The dimensions of a work of art are seldom realized by the author until the work is accomplished. It is like a flowering dream. Ideas grow, budding silently, and there are a thousand illuminations coming day by day as the work progresses.

The dog [in Pavlov’s experiments] does not continue to salivate whenever it hears a bell unless sometimes at least an edible offering accompanies the bell.

Everything that I will ever accomplish, I owe to God, to my parent’s sacrifices, and to the United States of America.