“What matters in Politics is what men actually do – sincerity is no excuse for acting unpolitically, and insincerity may be channelled by politics into good results.”

Since the business of politics is the conciliation of differing interests, justice must not merely be done, but to be seen to be done.

The politician has no more use for pride than Falstaff had for honour.

If a government is to do great new things, it will need more support. If a government is to change the world, it will need mass support. This is one of the discoveries of modern government.

In an abstract but real sense, Marxism arose through the breakdown first of religion and then of ‘reason’ as single sources of authority.

Too often the revolutionary is the man who must create order in the chaos left by failed conservatives.

Individualism and Economic Order and many other works, which is, to put it briefly, the whole of laisser-faire economic theory, then plainly man as such a programmed predator has very little interest in being fraternal, or very little chance.

Politics is a way of ruling in divided societies without undue violence…politics is not just a necessary evil; it is a realistic good.

To Marx the claim of the theory of ideology is that all doctrine is a derivative of social circumstance.

BOREDOM with established truths is a great enemy of free men.

There is no great danger to politics in the desire for certainty at any price.

Where government is impossible, politics is impossible.

Politics deserves much praise. Politics is a preoccupation of free men, and its existence is a test of freedom. The praise of free men is worth having, for it is the only praise which is free from either servility or condescension.

Politics are, as it were, the market place and the price mechanism of all social demands – though there is no guarantee that a just price will be struck; and there is nothing spontaneous about politics- it depends on deliberate and continuous activity.

Certainly if the fundamental problem of society is that demands are infinite and resources are always limited, politics, not economics is the master science.

Totalitarianism surpasses autocracy.

Free men stick their necks out.

The nature of the human mind is such that unless it is stimulated by images of things acting upon it from without, all remembrance of them passes easily away.

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don’t get it, I can’t do it.

Don’t think for a moment that I’m really like any of the characters I’ve played. I’m not. That’s why it’s called ‘acting’.

With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it’s just not acting. It’s lying.

Leadership is a way of thinking, a way of acting and, most importantly, a way of communicating.

Acting is the only time when I truly maintain the spontaneity that I want to be present at all times.

I never plan to stop acting, I take it very seriously.

Life is like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.