“Churchill has spent the best years of his life preparing impromptu remarks.”

“The PP has spent 3 years thinking about the election (in 2008), but I think that one has to give them some advice: to prepare themselves to carry on thinking, but about the election in 2012.”

“A philosopher has remarked that if a man knew that he had thirty years of life before him, it would not be an unwise thing to spend twenty of those years in mapping out a plan of living, and putting himself under rule; for he would do more with the ten well-arranged years than with the whole thirty if he spent them at random. There is much truth in that saying. A man will do little by firing off his gun if he has not learned to take aim.”

“As a soldier who has spent a quarter of his life in the study of the science of arms, let me tell you I went into the British Army believing that if you want peace you must prepare for war. I believe now that if you prepare thoroughly and efficiently for war, you get war.”

“Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.”

“The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.”

“The good life is the best preparation for bad times.”

“He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.”

“I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.”

“When your life has been spent in one war after another for forty-five years, you have to be pretty handy to survive.”