“Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.”

The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreter.

We are all servants of the laws in order to be free.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Law applied to its extreme is the greatest injustice.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

While there’s life, there’s hope.

Freedom is participation in power.

It is a great thing to know your vices.

For walk where we will, we tread upon some story.

Books: our unfailing companions.

To be rather than to seem.

Endless money forms the sinews of war.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

Cultivation of the mind is as necessary as food to the body.

The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.

Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant.

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.

It was a grey day, that made me think like I was in a dream.

We know how tough it is to find purpose in the memory of the loved one you lost. It will take time – but you will find it, and we will find our purpose as a nation.

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.

One day you will look at those photos with much kinder eyes and say, ‘Dear God, I was a beautiful thing!

I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.