"Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them."

"We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder."

"The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past."

"An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along."

"I won't compare ants and people, but ants give us a useful model of how single members of a community can become so organized that they end up resembling, in effect, one big collective brain. Our own exploding population and communication technology are leading us that way."

"No nation can meet the world's challenges alone."

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

"I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense."