Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.

Some people are more terrorist than others.

Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising.

It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen...

Reform, that we may preserve.

The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise.

I don’t think that what’s going on in Bosnia is political activity. It’s partly political, but it’s partly atavistic as well.

Any stigma, as the old saying is, will serve to beat a dogma.

Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.

The great Chinese classics have always said that it’s better not to fight; that the clever man achieves his ends without violence; that a battle delayed is better than a battle fought.

I was never less alone than when by myself.

Such night in England ne’er had been, nor ne’er again shall be.

I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.

I think Americans like the practical; they like the human. And I like both those things myself, and I try and put them into my books.

Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.

The great men of power who seek to change the nations they belong to usually are pretty terrible people.

The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world.

We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.

I think that black Africa is extremely terrifying. Black Africa can become a maelstrom of warring tribes without the outside world needing to feel the need to do anything about it.

People who jump to conclusions rarely alight on them.

Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.

The Islam of the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century was a poor thing. Nobody bothered about it. Islam was that funny sort of pure system of beliefs that depressed people in...