“What is leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason”

“What was leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason?”

“Politics? Boring? Politics is history on the wing! What other sphere of human activity calls forth all that is most noble in men's souls, and all that is most base? Or has such excitement? Or more vividly exposes our strengths and weaknesses? Boring? You might as well say that life itself is boring!”

“Of all human activities, writing is the one for which it is easiest to find excuses not to begin – the desk’s too big, the desk’s too small, there’s too much noise, there’s too much quiet, it’s too hot, too cold, too early, too late. I had learned over the years to ignore them all, and simply to start.”

“I found, for example, that Cicero was fond of repeating certain phrases, and these I learned to reduce to a line, or even a few dots--thus proving what most people already know, that politicians essentially say the same thing over and over again.”

“Have you ever seen fishermen when a storm is brewing on a great river? I have seen them many a time. In the face of a storm one group of fishermen will muster all their forces, encourage their fellows and boldly put out to meet the storm: 'Cheer up, lads, hold tight to the tiller, cut the waves, we'll pull her through!' But there is another type of fishermen - those who, on sensing a storm, lose heart, begin to snivel and demoralise their own ranks: 'What a misfortune, a storm is brewing; lie down, boys, in the bottom of the boat, shut your eyes; let's hope she'll make the shore somehow.”

“But clever people all make one mistake. They all think everyone else is stupid. And everyone isn't stupid. They just take a bit more time, that's all.”