Statesman Quotes

Fear to do ill, and you need fear else.

To all apparent beauties blind, each blemish strikes an envious mind.

Writing a book is an adventure.

A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.

Were the offer made true, I would engage to run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life. All I would ask should be the privilege of an author, to correct, in a second edition, certain errors of the first.

Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.

You must not, when you have gained a victory, use any triumphing or insulting expressions, nor show too much of the pleasure you feel; but endeavour to console your adversary, and make him less dissatisfied with himself by every kind and civil expression that may be used with truth; such as, you understand the game better than I, but you are a little inattentive, or, you play too fast; or, you had the best of the game, but something happened to divert your thoughts, and that turned it in my favour.

Books, in all their variety, offer the human intellect the means whereby civilisation may be carried triumphantly forward.

What man does not know,Or has not thought of,Wanders in the nightThrough the labyrinth of the mind.

The force of a language does not consist of rejecting what is foreign but of swallowing it.

The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

Even though the numbers are down with respect to favorability ratings, at every embassy and consular office tomorrow morning that we have, people will be lined up, and they'll all say the same thing, "We want to go to America." So we're still the leader of the world that wants to be free. We are still the inspiration of the rest of the world. And we can come back.

Old age is never honored among us, but only indulged, as childhood is; and old men lose one of the most precious rights of man,--that of being judged by their peers.

Joy doesn't exist in the world, it exists in us.

Men's prejudices rest upon their character for the time being and cannot be overcome, as being part and parcel of themselves. Neither evidence nor common sense nor reason has the slightest influence upon them.

Russia isn't going to start a war. They can't afford it. I think Mr. Putin can be dealt with if we stop screaming at him. You can work with the guy. You just have to know who he is.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

Such is the frailty of man that even where he makes the truest and most forcible impression in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish.

There are few who have at once thought and capacity for action. Thought expands, but lames; action animates, but narrows.

Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

Freedom is participation in power.

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power.

The ground that a good man treads is hallowed.

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

The name of peace is sweet, the thing itself is most salutary.

So long as I am acting from duty and conviction, I am indifferent to taunts and jeers. I think they will probably do me more good than harm.

We blame equally him who is too proud to put a proper value on his own merit and him who prizes too highly his spurious worth.

In rivers and bad governments the lightest things swim at top.

Without your knowledge, the eyes and ears of many will see and watch you, as they have done already.

The English are loth to express their feelings, but in my stall in the choir I could feel the pent-up, passionate emotion, and also the fear of the congregation, not of death or wounds or material loss, but of defeat and the final ruin of Britain.

It is the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.

Dream, Dream Dream Dreams transform into thoughts And thoughts result in action.

The shudder of awe is humanity's highest faculty,Even though this world is forever altering its values.

A war of ideas can no more be won without books than a naval war can be won without ships. Books, like ships, have the toughest armor, the longest cruising range, and mount the most powerful guns.

All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.

If this is a blessing, it is certainly very well disguised.

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

If you get the dirty end of the stick, sharpen it and turn it into a useful tool.

You know you're a good leader when people follow you out of curiosity.

Some men make a womanish complaint that it is a great misfortune to die before our time. I would ask what time? Is it that of Nature? But she, indeed, has lent us life, as we do a sum of money, only no certain day is fixed for payment. What reason then to complain if she demands it at pleasure, since it was on this condition that you received it.

Baldwin often times stumbles over the truth, but he always picks himself up and hurries on as if nothing had happened.

I wished my wife to be not so much as suspected.

If you are born with fame, it is an accident. If you die with fame, it is an achievement.

Here's to our beloved George Washington, the Joshua of America, who commanded the sun and the moon to stand still - and they obeyed.

He that is rich need not live sparingly,and he that can live sparingly need not be rich.

Sweet moonlight, shining full and clear, Why do you light my torture here? How often have you seen me toil, Burning last drops of midnight oil. On books and papers as I read, My friend, your mournful light you shed. If only I could flee this den And walk the mountain-tops again, Through moonlit meadows make my way, In mountain caves with spirits play - Released from learning's musty cell, Your healing dew would make me well!

How often have we seen politicians take a principle position only to give it up three days later? That is what makes democracy so fascinating.

The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks

Let us live, while we are alive!

Does not man lack the force at the very point where he needs it most? And when he soars upward in joy, or sinks down in suffering, is not checked in both, is he not returned again to the dull, cold sphere of awareness, just when he was longing to lose himself in the fullness of the infinite.

In terms of the legal matter of creating a contract between two people that's called marriage, and allowing them to live together with the protection of law, it seems to me is the way we should be moving in this country.

Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.

There is no purpose in living where there is nothing to do.

Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.

The world only goes forward because of those who oppose it.

We Shall come through! We cannot tell when, we cannot tell how, but we shall come through.

Not to have knowledge of what happened before you were born is to be condemned to live as a child.

We defend and we build a way of life, not for America alone, but for all mankind.

It is not easy to distinguish between true and false affection, unless there occur one of those crises in which, as gold is tried by fire, so a faithful friendship may be tested by danger.

Those good at war aren't good at peace, and those good at peace aren't good at war.