“One wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He should be clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by no means strait-laced.”

They are gifted with the powers of being mothers, but not nursing mothers. Nature gives them bosoms for show, but not for use. So Lady Arabella had a wet-nurse.

It is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so.

Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.

Any one prominent in affairs can always see when a man may steal a horse and when a man may not look over a hedge.

Nothing surely is as potent as a law that may not be disobeyed. It has the force of the water drop that hollows the stone.

It is a grand thing to rise in the world. The ambition to do so is the very salt of the earth. It is the parent of all enterprise, and the cause of all improvement.

Those who have courage to love should have courage to suffer.

I doubt whether any girl would be satisfied with her lover’s mind if she knew the whole of it.

Poverty, to be picturesque, should be rural. Suburban misery is as hideous as it is pitiable.

It is very hard, that necessity of listening to a man who says nothing

Many people talk much, and then very many people talk very much more.

No other American city is so intensely American as New York.

Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.

Speeches easy to young speakers are generally very difficult to old listeners.

It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will support you when all other recreations are gone. It will last until your death. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.

Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.

I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.

I’ve looked that old scoundrel death in the eye many times but this time I think he has me on the ropes.

Many people suffer from the fear of finding oneself alone, and so they don’t find themselves at all.

So we find messages of self-salvation extremely attractive, whether they are religious (Keep these rules and you earn eternal blessing) or secular (Grab hold of these things and you’ll experience blessing now).

Long before many of us were even conscious of our own degradation, these men [Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. DuBois] fought for African national and racial equality.

I didnt break his jaw, but if he lays a hand on you, it will be the first of many things to break, patch said.

And I think, like, there’s a crucial difference between being, you know, Joe Schmo in the neighborhood and being the head, you know, of the government that, you know, in many ways is largely responsible for those conditions in the first place.

Like anyone else, a lot of what I do and how I think has been shaped by my family and my overall life experience. Many who know me say I am also defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning. I buy more books than I can finish.