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

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.

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

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...

Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.

The leader of men in warfare can show himself to his followers only through a mask, a mask that he must make for himself, but a mask made in such form as will mark him...

That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.

I think to be shot in a mountain valley somewhere or other is altogether less glorious than crashing an airliner into a skyscraper.

The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender.

I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the...

The revival of Islam dates from the early years of the 20th century. It was brought about by their humiliation, by their sense of how low they’d fallen compared with the West.

The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.

There are certain wicked people in the world that you can’t deal with except by force.

The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little.

If Wellington epitomizes the English gentleman, Eisenhower epitomizes the natural American gentleman.

Any stigma will do to beat a dogma.

Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.

The English Bible — a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.

The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event.

We may have to have a geo-political regrouping or major geo-political changes.

The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners.

It’s a necessary quality of a diplomat or a politician that he will compromise. Uncompromising politicians or diplomats get you into the most terrible trouble.

Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.

I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.