I think the greatest rogues are they who talk most of their honesty.

An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.

When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper.

Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.

Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?

The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.

There is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the acquirement of any art.

Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.

A simple act of kindness could be the source of great happiness.

That is the definition of faith - acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove.

One can build the Empire State Building, discipline the Prussian army, make a state hierarchy mightier than God, yet fail to overcome the unaccountable superiority of certain human beings.

I love silence. I seek and create it at every opportunity. I need it to work.

People usually go through a bad period when they first get successful. You're new and you're hot and things go wrong.

The start of a World Cross Country event is like riding a horse in the middle of a buffalo stampede. It's a thrill if you keep up, but one slip and you're nothing but hoof prints.

After 30 years in Brussels, I can tell you: The relationship between the Commission and the Parliament has probably never been as good as it is now.

As an athlete you have to be coachable. And being coachable is a humbling thing.

The first steps in self-acceptance are not at all pleasant, for what one sees is not a happy sight. One needs all the courage to go further.