“The music of life is in danger of being lost in the music of the voice.”

“I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no dis-advantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage.”

“Democracy and dependence on the military and police are incompatible.”

“No sophistry, no jugglery in figures can explain away the evidence that the skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye.”

“A principle is a principle and in no case can it be watered down because of our incapacity to live it in practice. We have to strive to achieve it, and the striving should be conscious, deliberate and hard.”

“If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.”

“The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

“It is a curious fact about British Islanders, who hate drill and have not been invaded for nearly a thousand years, that as danger comes nearer and grows they become progressively less nervous; when it is imminent the are fierce, when it is mortal they are fearless.”