We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom-and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair.

I'd rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.

We, who know only the melancholy of ruins, can scarcely understand that totally different melancholy of eternal buildings, from which men endeavoured to save themselves as best they could.

Let me declare expressly that in the days when mankind was not yet ashamed of its cruelty, life on earth was more cheerful than it is now that pessimists exist.

Everything in the world displeases me: but, above all, my displeasure in everything displeases me.

He that would enjoy life and act with freedom must have the work of the day continually before his eyes. Not yesterday's work, lest he fall into despair, nor tomorrow's, lest he become a visionary, nor that which ends with the day, which is a worldly work, nor yet that only which remains to eternity, for by it he cannot shape his actions.