What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword, Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, Th' observed of all observers, quite, quite down!

We tell the public which way the cat is jumping. The public will take care of the cat. - "Time", On Journalists, May 8, 1950.

Luck affects everything. Let your hook always be cast in the stream where you least expect there will be a fish.

Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So ling lives this, and this gives life to thee.

For the want of a nail the shoe was lost, For the want of a shoe the horse was lost, For the want of a horse the rider was lost, For the want of a rider the battle was lost, For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost, And all for the want of a horse-shoe nail.

Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 The very strength and facility of the pessimists' case at once poses us a problem. If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? Men are fools, perhaps; but hardly so foolish as that. The direct inference from black to white, from evil flower to virtuous root, from senseless work to a workman infinitely wise, staggers belief. The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been the ground of religion: it must have always been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held.

A better present makes for a good past and future.

Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of non-thought.

Feast of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons, Scholar, 899 Commemoration of Cedd, Founding Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of the East Saxons, 664 Do you think that the work God gives us to do is never easy? Jesus says that His yoke is easy, His burden is light. People sometimes refuse to do God's work just because it is easy. This is sometimes because they cannot believe that easy work is His work; but there may be a very bad pride in it. Some, again, accept it with half a heart and do it with half a hand. But however easy any work may be, it can not be well done without taking thought about it. And such people, instead of taking thought about their work, generally take thought about the morrow -- in which no work can be done, any more than in yesterday.

The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of; the last he does not concern himself about.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

Freedom all solace to man gives: He lives at ease that freely lives.

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another . . . and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.

Truth hath a quiet breast. -King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.

That man scorches with his brightness, who overpowers inferior capacities, yet he shall be revered when dead.

Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.

Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.