“Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.”

From the earliest time the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger.

In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. They’re both very good things.

He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.

The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity.

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.

Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.

Oh, it’s always the same,’ she sighed, ‘if you want men to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat them decently they make you suffer for it.

It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.

It was such a beautiful day I decided to stay in bed.

You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognize the inevitable selfishness of humanity.

A dictator must fool all the people all the time and there’s only one way to do that, he must also fool himself.

An unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.

I don’t think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.

You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.

A mother only does her children harm if she makes them the only concern of her life.

I see the holidays as a chance for kids to learn self-sufficiency.

Louis Pasteur, the great scientist, said “chance favours the prepared mind”, which is a posh way of saying ‘do your homework’, but it’s an excellent piece of advice.

It certainly is gravy every day above ground right now, after kicking that heroin habit.

I really do see it as the start of the second half of my career.

When you win an election, what you really win is a chance to go to work for working families who need a voice in Minnesota.

I thought my chances were fairly good, but I tried to stay low key about it, not too high and not too low. That was the way I played, too.

I’ve been given a second chance in life, and I don’t want to let a minute go by without enjoying it.

Good schools for me to prepare myself for a career, and, if I worked hard and played by the rules, a chance for me to do anything I wanted.