Hence we did not foster competition in our school, on the contrary.

Democracy can only spring from practising it early, and democratic action was not to expected from young people brought up under a close authoritarian system.

You could not receive a young man in your room; you might be permitted to have him to tea in one of the public reception rooms, but you could accept no invitation from young men to tea or other entertainment without a chaperone from the College.

Marriage, laws, the police, armies and navies are the mark of human incompetence.

It is the future, of course, which politicians grapple with, and that is why politics is so disorderly. Only history clears away some of the debris.

As a society, I think we express our cultural mores through our politics. We're trying constantly to figure out what's OK and what's not OK. And it's hard, because our society is constantly buffeted by gale force winds of technology. Things are always changing.

It doesn't matter how fashion or politics changes; you'll never change a classic song.

Solyndra's failure isn't a reason for the government to give up on alternative energy, any more than the failure of Pets.com during the Internet bubble means that venture capital should steer clear of tech projects.