She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake.Collection: Wedding
Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.
It is always dangerous to generalize, but the American people, while infinitely generous, are a hard and strong race and, but for the few cemeteries I have seen, I am inclined to think they never die.
From the happy expression on their faces you might have supposed that they welcomed the war. I have met with men who loved stamps, and stones, and snakes, but I could not imagine any man loving war.
the announcement that you are going to tell a good story (and the chuckle that precedes it) is always a dangerous opening.Collection: Stories
I do not say I was ever what I would call "plain," but I have the sort of face that bores me when I see it on other people.Collection: People
I have been devoured all my life by an incurable and burning impatience: and to this day find all oratory, biography, operas, films, plays, books, and persons, too long.Collection: Book
He couldn't see a belt without hitting below it.Collection: Sarcastic
There are some people that you cannot change, you must either swallow them whole or leave them alone.Collection: People
[To Jean Harlow, who repeatedly mispronounced her first name:] No, no, Jean. The t is silent, as in Harlow.Collection: Names
There is nothing more perplexing in life than to know at what point you should surrender your intellect to your faith.Collection: Surrender
The first element of greatness is fundamental humbleness (this should not be confused with servility); the second is freedom from self; the third is intrepid courage, which, taken in its widest interpretation, generally goes with truth; and the fourth-the power of love-although I have put it last, is the rarest.Collection: Confused
There are big men, men of intellect, intellectual men, men of talent and men of action; but the great man is difficult to find, and it needs --apart from discernment --a certain greatness to find him.Collection: Greatness
The Almighty is a wonderful handicapper: He will not give us everything.Collection: God
All I can say about my mind is that, like a fire carefully laid by a good housemaid, it is one that any match will light.Collection: Fire
Haunted from my early youth by the transitoriness and pathos of life, I was aware that it is not enough to say "I am doing no harm," I ought to be testing myself daily, and asking myself what I am really achieving.Collection: Achievement
The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue. . . . There is a perpetual interference with personal liberty over there that would not be tolerated in England for a week.Collection: Kings
The Bible tells us to forgive our enemies, not our friendsCollection: Inspiration
The spirit is an inward flame; a lamp the world blows upon but never puts out.Collection: Spiritual
Too much brilliance has its disadvantages, and misplaced wit may raise a laugh, but often beheads a topic of profound interest.Collection: Profound
My father's nature turned out no waste product; he had none of that useless stuff in him that lies in heaps near factories. He took his own happiness with him.Collection: Attitude
You can do something with talent, but nothing with genius.Collection: Genius
Till I see money spent on the betterment of man instead of on his idleness and destruction, I shall not believe in any perfect form of government.Collection: Believe
Rumor is untraceable, incalculable, and infectious.Collection: Gossip
I have no face, only two profiles clapped together.Collection: Two
Although I am not stupid, the mathematical side of my brain is like dumb notes upon a damaged piano.Collection: Stupid
Convictions no doubt have to be modified or expanded to meet changing conditions but ... to be a reliable political leader sooner or later your anchors must hold fast where other men's drag.Collection: Men
[To her host upon leaving a party:] Don't think it hasn't been charming, because it hasn't.Collection: Party
I have always wanted to be a man, if only for the reason that I would like to have gauged the value of my intellect.Collection: Men
To marry a man out of pity is folly; and, if you think you are going to influence the kind of fellow who has never had a chance, poor devil, you are profoundly mistaken. One can only influence the strong characters in life, not the weak; and it is the height of vanity to suppose that you can make an honest man of anyone.Collection: Marriage
Stafford Cripps has a brilliant mind, until he makes it up.Collection: Mind
What a pity, when Christopher Colombus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it.Collection: Discovery
[On spiritualism:] I always knew the living talked rot, but it's nothing to the rot the dead talk.Collection: Spiritualism
The power to love what is purely abstract is given to few.Collection: Abstract
She spends her day powdering her face till she looks like a bled pig.Collection: Sarcastic
If Kitchener was not a great man, he was, at least, a great poster.Collection: Men
It is not dying, but living, that is a preparation for Death.Collection: Death
Lloyd George? There is no Lloyd George. There is a marvellous brain; but if you were to shut him in a room and look through the keyhole there would be nobody there.Collection: Brain
Truthfulness with me is hardly a virtue. I cannot discriminate between truths that and those that don't need to be told.Collection: Needs
If you have been sunned through and through like an apricot on a wall from your earliest days, you are oversensitive to any withdrawal of heat.Collection: Wall
I was born in the country of Hogg and Scott between the Yarrow and the Tweed, in the year 1864.Collection: Country