“William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.”

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.

One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

It destroys one’s nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

He has left them in the full enjoyment of their liberal positions, and he is himself a strict conservative of their garments.

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.

The first magic of love is our ignorance that it can ever end.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

I repeat… that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.

The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.

What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.

War is never a solution; it is an aggravation.

The more defects a man may have, the older he is, the less lovable, the more resounding his success.

We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.

I have always been more interested in creating a character that contains something crippled. I think nearly all of us have some kind of defect.

Some people displease with merit, and others’ very faults and defects are pleasing.

The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age.

The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.

Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.

Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.