Laws are like medicine; they generally cure an evil by a lesser or a passing evil.

Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans (1888).

What we learn from History is that no one learns from History

The Americans are a very lucky people. They're bordered to the north and south by weak neighbors, and to the east and west by fish.

God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.

The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.

We live in a wondrous time in which the strong is weak because of his moral scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity.

Never fight with Russian. On your every stratagem they answer unpredictable stupidity.

Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver’s Travels from the library.  This book I had again and again perused with delight.

An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth.

The man whose eye is single for the glory of Another can be trusted.

We wish to constitute all the happiness, or, if that cannot be, the misery of the one we love.

We live in a world we ourselves create.

Look at the real prodigies, and I look like nothing compared to them.

Especially in this industry, women challenge men much more now because we're saying, 'We can do it, too.'

All myths that are something more than fancies gain rather than lose in value with time, by reason of the accretions of human experience.

I don't even know half the time what I'm nominated for.

The sage embraces things. Ordinary men discriminate amongst them and parade their discriminations before others. So I say; those who discriminate, fail to see.