Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers who can cut through argument debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.

All the ills of mankind all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books all the political blunders all the failures of the great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing.

A battle lost or won is easily described understood and appreciated but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection as well as observation to appreciate it.

No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

Truth is I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.

There are many people in the world who really don't understand-or say they don't-what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin!

To be great is to be misunderstood.