Occupations

"A subject interests me and holds my attention only so long as it presents me with difficulties, only so long as I am at odds with it and have, as it were, to struggle with it; but once I have mastered it I hurry on to something else, to a new subject; for my interest is not confined to any particular field or subject; it extends to everything human. This does not mean that I am an intellectual miser or egoist, who amasses knowledge for himself alone; by no means! What I do and think for myself, I must also think and do for others. But I feel the need of instructing others in a subject only so long as, while instructing others, I am also instructing myself."

"Do not say: ‘When I am free, I will study’; perhaps you will never be free."

"Back of the boy is Wilson, Pledge of his high degree, Back of the boy is Lincoln, Lincoln and Grant and Lee; Back of the boy is Jackson, Jackson and Tippecanoe, Back of each son is Washington, And the old red, white and blue!"

"It is essential to every inquiry about duty that we keep before our eyes how far superior man is by nature to cattle and other beasts: they have no thought except for sensual pleasure and this they are impelled by every instinct to seek; but man's mind is nurtured by study and meditation."

"Me therefore studious of laborious ease."

"Exhausting thought, And hiving wisdom with each studious year."

"When night hath set her silver lamp on high, Then is the time for study."

"The seers of old had fully restrained selves, and were austere. Having abandoned the five strands of sensual pleasures, they practiced their own welfare. The brahmans had no cattle, no gold, no wealth. They had study as their wealth and grain. They guarded the holy life as their treasure."

"Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil."

"I have seen men march to the wars, and then I have watched their homeward tread, And they brought back bodies of living men, But their eyes were cold and dead. So, Buddy, no matter what else the fame, No matter what else the prize, I want you to come back thru The Flame With the boy-look still in your eyes!"

"Why don't you show us a statesman who can rise up to the emergency, and cave in the emergency's head."

"Tell the truth, and so puzzle and confound your adversaries."

"And statesmen at her council met Who knew the seasons when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet."

"A constant element of enjoyment must be mingled with our studies, so that we think of learning as a game rather than a form of drudgery, for no activity can be continued for long if it does not to some extent afford pleasure to the participant."

"It is not the guns or armament Or the money they can pay, It's the close co-operation That makes them win the day. It is not the individual Or the army as a whole, But the everlastin' teamwork Of every bloomin' soul."

"Ned has gone, he's gone away, he's gone away for good. He's called, he's killed. Him and his drum lies in the rain, lies where they was stood. Where they was stilled."

"Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience. For natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them. For they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without [outside of] them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed digested. That is, some books are to be read only parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books: else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not."

"Who passes down this road so late? Compagnon de la Majaloine? Who passes down this road so late, Always gay! Of all the King's Knights 'tis the flower, Compagnon de la Majaloine, Of all the King's Knights 'tis the flower, Always gay!"

"Spheres of influence."

"Learn to think continentally."

"Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus ad mentiendem rei publicæ causæ."

"'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world—so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it."

"Statesmen have to bend to the collective will of their peoples or be broken."

"Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains."

"Tho 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone; 'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own; 'E keeps 'is side-arms awful: 'e leaves 'em all about, An' then comes up the Regiment an' pokes the 'eathen out."

"And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne."

"There is a remedy against the domination imposed, not by generals, statesmen, and men of action, whose power dissolves when they retire, but by the great sort-crossers, whose power increases when they die- the remedy of becoming aware of metaphor..."

"If you wish to preserve your secret wrap it up in frankness."

"Statesman, yet friend to truth; of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear; Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend; Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd, And prais'd, unenvy'd, by the Muse he lov'd."

"So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man; And 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ay-rick 'ead of 'air; You big black boundin' beggar—for you broke a British square!"

"Who would not praise Patricio's high desert, His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart, His comprehensive head? all interests weigh'd, All Europe sav'd, yet Britain not betray'd."

"Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?—Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?—Why by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humour or caprice?"

"The knight's bones are dust, And his good sword rust; His soul is with the saints, I trust."

"Winston Churchill famously claimed that of all human qualities, courage was the most esteemed, because it guaranteed all others. He was right. Courage—moral courage—is the companion of great leadership. No politician could ever be viewed as exceptional unless he or she had it in spades. And historically there would have been no social progress if not for the presence of specific humans dissenting and breaking from herd-inspired suspicion and fear... At best, courage is self-sacrificing, non-violent, modest and based on universal principles — and immensely powerful.... Look at today’s politicians... keen to be viewed as the virile leaders of their respective countries; eager to inflate their image by harming migrants and refugees, the most vulnerable in society. If there is courage in that, I fail to see it. Authoritarian leaders, or elected leaders inclined toward it, are bullies, deceivers, selfish cowards. If they are growing in number it is because (with exceptions) many other politicians are mediocre... focused on their own image... too afraid to stand up... What if 100m or more people marched around the world in protest at what it is we now see: the ineptitude, selfishness, the cruelties and the threats to our collective well-being? ...it might just deliver a sort of shock therapy to those dangerous or useless politicians who now threaten humanity."

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none."

"D'ye think that statesmen's kindnesses proceed From any principles but their own need."

"I have the courage of my opinions, but I have not the temerity to give a political blank cheque to Lord Salisbury."

"Gli ambasciadori sono l'occhio e l'orecchio degli stati."

"The first among the sciences is that of statesmanship. That cannot be learnt in academies. No great minister, from Suger to Richelieu, ever occupied himself with physics or mathematics. The genius of the natural sciences makes impossible that other kind of genius, which is a talent unto itself."

"How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest! * * * * * By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung."

"No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains To tax our labours and excise our brains."

"The people of the two nations [French and English] must be brought into mutual dependence by the supply of each other's wants. There is no other way of counteracting the antagonism of language and race. It is God's own method of producing an entente cordiale, and no other plan is worth a farthing."

"Nicanor lay dead in his harness."

"A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them."

"It is well indeed for our land that we of this generation have learned to think nationally."

"He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk; He steps right onward, martial in his air, His form and movement."

"For it's Tommy this an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "Savior of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot."

"The truth is, gentlemen, a statesman is the creature of his age, the child of circumstances, the creation of his times. A statesman is essentially a practical character ; and when he is called upon to take office, he is not to inquire what his opinions might or might not have been upon this or that subject he is only to ascertain the needful, and the beneficial, and the most feasible manner in which affairs are to be carried on. I laugh, therefore, at the objections against a man, that, at a former period of his career, he advocated a policy different to his present one."

"You led our sons across the haunted flood, Into the Canaan of their high desire— No milk and honey there, but tears and blood Flowed where the hosts of evil trod in fire, And left a worse than desert where they passed."

"Statesmanship […] must consider first the fortunes of the common people. No statesman has a right to risk these fortunes unless he be reasonably assured of success."