Our minds possess by nature an insatiable desire to know the truth.

Politicians are not born; they are excreted.

Poor is the nation that has no heroes, but poorer still is the nation that having heroes, fails to remember and honor them.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.

We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history.

It is not enough to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to employ it.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Be careful about Burma. Most people cannot remember whether it was Siam and has become Thailand, or whether it is now part of Malaysia and should be called Sri Lanka.

Disaster can take a nation by surprise, slowly, and then all at once.

The songs that I've written about Africa, and AIDS and HIV and about the power of humanitarian love, those songs, I'm gonna sing them because I know that it's real.

On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.

Our commitment to defence goes beyond this. It's a long-term commitment to make SA the home for Australian defence. It's a commitment to providing the right infrastructure and the right people.

To what shall the character of utility be ascribed, if not to that which is a source of pleasure?

What is an aristocrat? A woman who is never sullied by vulgarity, although she may be surrounded by it.

He works fast. He throws a lot of strikes. That's what an infielder loves. It gets you into the game.

My ma says a rock lasts forever, but people don’t, and that’s what makes them more precious.

Money? I lost all taste for it.