The very greatest things - great thoughts discoveries inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship often pondered over in sorrow and at length established with difficulty.
What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one.
The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak which resists it and so in great calamities it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.
Where words are restrained the eyes often talk a great deal.
All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.
Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.
Half a truth is often a great lie.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie deliberate contrived and dishonest but the myth persistent persuasive and unrealistic.
A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.
Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.
Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off.
One of the most difficult speeches to prepare is an address to a graduation class which is why I don't often do them.
I have no problems with private schools. I graduated from one and so did my mother. Private schools are useful and we often use public funds to pay for their infrastructures and other common needs.
A reporter's ability to keep the bond of confidentiality often enables him to learn the hidden or secret aspects of government.
Common sense tells us that the government's attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy.
All too often government's response to social breakdown has been a classic case of 'patching' - a case of handing money out containing problems and limiting the damage but in doing so supporting - even reinforcing - dysfunctional behaviour.
The fact is that America has been at her most prosperous when government and the private sector have been not at war but in a wary if often underplayed alliance. History is unmistakable on this point.