“The first element of greatness is fundamental humbleness (this should not be confused with servility); the second is freedom from self; the third is intrepid courage, which, taken in its widest interpretation, generally goes with truth; and the fourth /the power to love /although I have put it last, is the rarest.”
“There are big men, men of intellect, intellectual men, men of talent and men of action; but the great man is difficult to find, and it needs /apart from discernment /a certain greatness to find him.”
“Jean Harlow [Hollywood's sexy actress] kept calling Margot Asquith by her first name, or kept trying to: she pronounced it Margot. Finally Margot set her right. `No, no, Jean. The t is silent as in Harlow.'”
“Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.”
“The ingrained idea that, because there is no king and they despise titles, the Americans are a free people is pathetically untrue. There is a perpetual interference with personal liberty over there that would not be tolerated in England for a week.”
“Journalism over here is not only an obsession but a drawback that cannot be overrated. Politicians are frightened of the press, and in the same way as bull-fighting has a brutalizing effect upon Spain (of which she is unconscious), headlines of murder, rape, and rubbish, excite and demoralize the American public.”