Margot Asquith Quotes

It is easier to influence strong than weak characters in life.

His modesty amounts to deformity.

He couldn't see a belt without hitting below it.

The capacity to suffer varies more than anything that I have observed in human nature.

He's very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head.

There are some people that you cannot change, you must either swallow them whole or leave them alone.

I have been devoured all my life by an incurable and burning impatience: and to this day find all oratory, biography, operas, films, plays, books, and persons, too long.

the announcement that you are going to tell a good story (and the chuckle that precedes it) is always a dangerous opening.

I do not say I was ever what I would call "plain," but I have the sort of face that bores me when I see it on other people.

[To Jean Harlow, who repeatedly mispronounced her first name:] 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.

There is nothing more perplexing in life than to know at what point you should surrender your intellect to your faith.

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.

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 of love-although I have put it last, is the rarest.

Symbols are the imaginative signposts of life.

Haunted from my early youth by the transitoriness and pathos of life, I was aware that it is not enough to say "I am doing no harm," I ought to be testing myself daily, and asking myself what I am really achieving.

The Almighty is a wonderful handicapper: He will not give us everything.

The Bible tells us to forgive our enemies, not our friends

The spirit is an inward flame; a lamp the world blows upon but never puts out.

All I can say about my mind is that, like a fire carefully laid by a good housemaid, it is one that any match will light.

She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake.

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.

From the happy expression on their faces you might have supposed that they welcomed the war. I have met with men who loved stamps, and stones, and snakes, but I could not imagine any man loving war.

Too much brilliance has its disadvantages, and misplaced wit may raise a laugh, but often beheads a topic of profound interest.

My father's nature turned out no waste product; he had none of that useless stuff in him that lies in heaps near factories. He took his own happiness with him.