The poet gives us his essence, but prose takes the mould of the body and mind entire.

A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor is a man perfected without trials.

A hard job is one which leaves a fellow as tired before week-end as after.

Speech is of time; silence is of eternity.

Without trust, words become the hollow sound of a woodengong. With trust, words become life itself.

Goodcommunication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleepafter.

To understand everything is to forgive everything.

The exercise of power is determined by thousands ofinteractions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, allthe more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyonehas a small part of himself in both.

We do not err because the truth is difficult to see. We err because this is more comfortable

Negotiatingin the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties are more anxious to agreethan to disagree.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and alwaysa clever thing to say.