The upper current of society presents no pertain criterion by which we can judge of the direction in which the under current flows.

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.

Up goes the rocket. Its golden grain falls, fertilising, upon the rich soil of my imagination.

Cultural contamination that is directed outward is always seen as ‘enlightenment.

Fame itself... doesn't really afford you anything more than a good seat in a restaurant.

I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown, And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness.

Sometimes you fall in love with some things and then you fall out of love with it.

I'm sure there isn't an after-life. If there were, Ivor Novello would have got a message to us.

Get off your horse and drink your milk.

The surest way of finding peace of mind is that which helps the greatest number of others to find it

I'm confident in some of the things that I wear, regardless of what other people are wearing.

I started skating because I loved it. I started when I was three and I didn't know all the sacrifices and all the hardships and how difficult day-in and day-out it would be.