I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons.

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.

Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.

There are people who come into our lives as welcome as a cool breeze in summer- and last about as long.

'Youth is the time for loving, so poets always say.

There are things that can't be said, because it's hard to have to know them.

But I still feel like a normal person... I've walked the streets and I know what it feels like. I speak with humility, and apparently those songs connect with people.

It's not that I'm stupid. I just don't think sometimes.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

I think because I was the first Chinese player to win a grand slam, people were thinking: 'She's not like normal people.'

Motherhood was the beginning of my own journey asking the question, 'Why am I here?' I had to stop and think: What am I doing to teach my daughter? What do I believe in?

My friends. They help me so much. I would not be here without my friends.

The wise man does not grow old, but ripens.