No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.

I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.

To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.

Humility is a virtue, and it is a virtue innate in guests.

It is easier to confess a defect than to claim a quality.

I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.

Nobody ever died of laughter.

You will find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always one who has failed to inspire sympathy in men.

When hospitality becomes an art it loses its very soul.

I need no dictionary of quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul.

People are either born hosts or born guests.

To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine.

To destroy is still the strongest instinct in nature.

No Roman ever was able to say, 'I dined last night with the Borgias'.

No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.

Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.

You will find my last words in the blue folder.

The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.

One might well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.

There is much to be said for failure. It is much more interesting than success.

People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the breakfast table.

Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up.

To mankind in general Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stand out as the supreme type of all that a host and hostess should not be.

A hundred eyes were fixed on her, and half as many hearts lost to her.

Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.

As a teacher, as a propagandist, Mr. Shaw is no good at all, even in his own generation. But as a personality, he is immortal.

We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of Americans.

It seems to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait.

All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.

Of all the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful.

Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.

Most women are not as young as they are painted.

To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people.

Some people are born to lift heavy weights, some are born to juggle golden balls.

The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.

Have you ever noticed there is never any third act to a nightmare? They bring you to a climax of terror and then leave you there.

There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.

When in doubt wear red.

As I think through the issue of funding the rebuilding of Iraq, I think about the analogy of a bankruptcy proceeding. There is no doubt that Iraq as a country is bankrupt.

After having dispatched a meal, I went ashore, and found no habitation save a single house, and that without an occupant; we had no doubt that the people had fled in terror at our approach, as the house was completely furnished.

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

We criticize, copy, patronize, idolize and insult but we never doubt that the U.S. has a unique position in the history of human hopes.

If you've got talent, stick with it... because talent wins out, without a doubt.

That a great battle must soon be fought no one could doubt; but, in the apparent and perhaps real absence of plan on the part of Lee, it was impossible to foretell the precise scene of the encounter.

I would not be gotten into a schoolhouse until I was eight years old. Nor did I accomplish much after I started. I doubt if I had gone to school six months in all when my father died. I was fourteen at the time.

No doubt Western civilization has in the past been full of wars and revolutions, and the national elements in our culture, even when they were ignored, always provided an unconscious driving force of passion and aggressive self-assertion.

You have to not listen to the nay sayers because there will be many and often they'll be much more qualified than you and cause you to sort of doubt yourself.

It has since been agreed that speeches given in English will be translated into French and vice versa, and even into German and Italian when necessary. No doubt translations into Esperanto will also soon be in demand.