Robert Cecil

Solitude shows us what should be; society shows us what we are.

Virtue consisted in avoiding scandal and venereal disease.

A wise man looks upon men as he does on horses; all their comparisons of title, wealth, and place, he consider but as harness.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.

Examples would indeed be excellent things were not people so modest that none will set, and so vain that none will follow them.

A half truth, like half a brick, is always more forcible as an argument than a whole one. It carries better.