Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the moment both themselves and their auditors.

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.

I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.

[Bruno] Latour argues that one of the foundational gestures of western modernity has been the effort to formulate and police a heightened antimony between nonhuman nature and human cu

They'll take everything, even your tears.

We must become what we wish to teach.

There is no evidence that changing your managers repeatedly leads to success, but there is evidence at Manchester United, I was managing there for 26 years I won 38 trophies.

I am thorough believer in the American test of character. He will not build high who does not build for himself.

People forget they have options. And they forget that those things really don't matter. They should concentrate on what they have and not what they don't have.

I'm very comfortable with myself and my sexuality, but it doesn't define me. I also read books believe it or not.

The hardest thing is the idea. Ideas come from somewhere but as far as we know they come from nowhere.

It taught me to hope, as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before.