A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.

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.

Work always makes a difference.

The steady soul and the ego pretender / walk with their arms round each other's shoulders / through the mirage.

When you build a city near no mountains and no ocean, you get materialism and traditional religion. People have too much time and lack inspiration.

In the garden of humanity every baby is a fresh new flower who can smile, laugh, giggle, dance, love and sing with mother earth.

There is life in a stone. Any stone that sits in a field or lies on a beach takes on the memory of that place. You can feel that stones have witnessed so many things.

Most people doing the decathlon these days are quite boring, so people don't relate to them.

If you have a happy friend, your happiness goes up fifteen times.

The note we end on is and must be the note of inexhaustible possibility and hope.

Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.