James Goldsmith (1933-1997)

Sir James Michael Goldsmith was a French-British financier and politician who was a member of the Goldsmith family. His controversial business and finance career led to ongoing clashes with British media, frequently involving litigation or the threat of litigation.

Quotes

Like the bee, we should make our industry our amusement.
None has more frequent conversations with a disagreeable self than the man of pleasure; his enthusiasms are but few and transient; his appetites, like angry creditors, are continually making fruitless demands for what he is unable to pay; and the greater his former pleasures, the more strong his regret, the more impatient his expectations. A life of pleasure is, therefore, the most unpleasing life.
Praise in the beginning is agreeable enough; and we receive it as a favor; but when it comes in great quantities, we regard it only as a debt, which nothing but our merit could extort.
The first time I read an excellent work, it is to me just as if I gained a new friend; and when I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting of an old one.