Mark Twain

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.

His money is twice tainted: taint yours and taint mine.

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark: – I wasn’t worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.

The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Our country, our people, and our laws have to be our top priority.

Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union.

The Comrade Wolf knows whom to eat, as the saying goes. It knows whom to eat and is not about to listen to anyone, it seems.

I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un. He gave us back our hostages. I didn’t pay $1.8 billion. I paid nothing. But it was very smart that he did it.

The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would … assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise human science is at a loss.

There’s a lot of debate about what’s happening in the Labour party at the present time. And I am inundated with questions, questions, questions all the time. And I have patience that is infinite to answer questions, questions, questions. But one I got today really did puzzle me. They said: how are you coping with the pressure that’s on you? I simply said this: ‘There is no pressure on me. None whatsoever.’ The real pressure, the real pressure – real pressure – is when you don’t have enough money to feed your kids, when you don’t have a roof over your head, when you’re wondering if you’re going to be cared for. When you’re wondering how you can survive. You’re wondering how you’re going to cope with the debts you’ve incurred … That is the real pressure in our society. For those people struggling on low pay, struggling on zero-hours contracts, not knowing what’s coming from one week to the other, not knowing if they’ll be able to pay the rent, not knowing if they’re going to be homeless, not knowing if their children will end up in care, that’s the kind of brutal pressure that’s put on people every day of the week in this country.

Terrorists are always a threat to someone. If we’ll be scared of them, it means they have won.

Throughout the two leadership campaigns I read quite a lot of Oscar Wilde.

We know what works. Freedom Works. We know what’s right. Freedom is right.

The Chechnya problem is a centuries-old problem. The thing is that today, fundamentalists and terrorists are exploiting those centuries-old problems to accomplish their own objectives that have nothing to do whatsoever with the interests of Chechnya.

At the deepest level, the media contribute to the sense that the government is the enemy, and they suppress the sources of real power in the society, which lie in the totalitarian institutions-the corporations, now international in scale -that control the economy and much of our social life.

Cromwell is just as much of a bloody dictator as was Stalin.

From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.

We all have an equal interest in stability and security throughout Europe. The years the OSCE has existed, and particularly this year, have given rise to great expectations and at the same time to powerful disappointments.