Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.

A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.

A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.

The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.

Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.

Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.

Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations.

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

It's all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine.

I am slowly coming to the conclusion that it’s more important to learn to work with what you’ve got, under the circumstances you’ve been given, than wishing for different ones.

HOW TO MAKE A REVOLUTIONARY CONSCIOUSNESS IS: educate yourself. On the train, for example, read the same two pages of Das Kapital over and over, willing them to make sense.

Although technical discussions are interesting to composers, I suspect that the truly magical and spiritual powers of music arise from deeper levels of our psyche.

A balanced life is like a three legged stool. Each leg - nutrition, fitness and wellness- is necessary and supports the other.

I want to do something big, something important.

A novel is what you dream in your night sleep. A novel is not waking thoughts although it is written and thought with waking thoughts.

Observe more, do less. Do less, enjoy more.

Was it harder to die, or harder to be the one who survived?

I'd be happy to have my biography be the stories of my dogs. To me, to live without dogs would mean accepting a form of blindness.