A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

People who earn reasonable amounts are being turned into the anti-Christ. I think 45 per cent tax is a colossal amount to take off somebody, and it is taking away the incentive to earn.

A good short story is a work of art which daunts us in proportion to its brevity.... No inspiration is too noble for it; no amountof hard work is too severe for it.

The importance of the ordinary citizen is very greatly underestimated - not so much by those in authority as by the ordinary citizen himself.

It really tests you as a person as far as whether you can handle failure.

I do understand the perspective of die-hard fans who complain that we don't play the same as the record, but at the same time I think fans are getting an amazing deal.

The alphabet of ahimsa is best learnt in domestic school and I can say from experience that if we secure success there, we are sure to do so everywhere else.

My heart is breaking," she says. "I want to be strong for you right now but the thought of you leaving is killing me inside.

I think [the death penalty is] very expensive, and the delays are inordinate, delaying closure for the victims' families.

The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.

Taste is something quite different from fashion, superior to fashion.