No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.

No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.

Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.

Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.

So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.

The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.

The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.

The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds.

The real essence of work is concentrated energy.

The reason that there are so few good books written is that so few people who write know anything.

The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.

We must not let daylight in upon the magic.

What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.

Woman absent is woman dead.

You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too - at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.

Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.

In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the best.