A circus is like a mother in whom one can confide and who rewards and punishes.
[On social change:] What I say is that if one country is annexed by another, its nationality is not changed overnight. Social processes are often very, very slow.
no war really comes unexpectedly. The drums are beating long before a single shot is fired.
For twenty years it had been generally known that an insidious Lobby was maintained in Washington to influence legislation and executive action on behalf of vested interests. . . . The lobby was a creature of darkness. It worked behind closed doors and whispered in corners. This ancient industry was one form of invisible government.
[On women getting the vote:] The newspapers, poor dears, looked of course for something very spectacular. But then newspapers are always apt to be more interested in phenomena like meteors than in the slow growth of a mighty tree. Wait ten years, and the politicians will one day wake up and say, 'Look who's here!
We were good reformers, but we weren't good enough. We elected a candidate and then, busy with our own affairs, we left him hanging in mid-air. Reformers are such part-time pillars of society!
I have a very hyper-sensitive sister, and when she saw in the papers the next day that I had proclaimed myself the daughter of an immigrant, she didn't like it at all, and was with difficulty deterred from writing to the press that my father might be an immigrant, but not hers.
It may be concluded that a pure democracy. . . can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction.
Be very sure of this,-people never reject the Bible because they cannot understand it. They understand it only too well; they understand that it condemns their own behavior; they understand that it witnesses against their own sins, and summons them to judgment.
I go on vacation strictly to relax - to kick back with a good book and do nothing else but read, sleep and eat.
Sometimes I want to just pull the off switch, but you can't because if you go outside, you have to give people your all. You can't say, 'Oh, you know what? I'm not feeling good today. ' No. No one's trying to hear that. When a woman comes up to you and says, 'Hey, my daughter's your biggest fan. Can we have a picture?' - you can't say no.