“Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.”

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

Never take anything for granted.

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

Success is the child of audacity.

You can tell the strength of a nation by the women behind its men.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.

There is no education like adversity.

Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s buying.

Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.

Do not, on a rainy day, ask your child what he feels like doing, because I assure you that what he feels like doing, you won’t feel like watching.

Time always seems long to the child who is waiting – for Christmas, for next summer, for becoming a grownup: long also when he surrenders his whole soul to each moment of a happy day.

The only time my records are going to be broken is by my own spawn. I’m going be training that child out the womb.

Each child is biologically required to have a mother. Fatherhood is a well-regarded theory, but motherhood is a fact.

I must take issue with the term ‘a mere child’, for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.

Maturity – among other things, the unclouded happiness of the child at play, who takes it for granted that he is at one with his play-mates.