For never doubt that those souls who live least by the flesh feel themselves most defiled by its defilement.

The real drawback to the simple life is that it is not simple. If you are living it, you positively can do nothing else. There is not time.

Simplicity is an acquired taste. Mankind, left free, instinctively complicates life.

Educational legislation nowadays is largely in the hands of illiterate people, and the illiterate will take good care that their illiteracy is not made a reproach on them.

There is no morality by instinct. There is no social salvation in the end without taking thought; without mastery of logic and application of logic to human experience.

Ignorance of what real learning is, and a consequent suspicion of it; materialism, and a consequent intellectual laxity, both of these have done destructive work in the colleges.

Nothing makes people so worthy of compliments as receiving them. One is more delightful for being told one is delightful-just as one is more angry for being told one is angry.

Conventional manners are a kind of literacy test for the alien who comes among us.

No fashion has ever been created expressly for the lean purse or for the fat woman: the dressmaker's ideal is the thin millionaires.

All violations of essential privacy are brutalizing.

You can bear anything if it is not your fault.

The harsh light above them caught her face, and Sean could see what she'd look like when she was much older - a handsome woman, scarred by wisdom she never asked for.

If you are filled with pride, then you have no room for wisdom.

It's always funny until someone gets hurt. Then it's just hilarious.

These decrees of yours are no different from spiders' webs. They'll restrain anyone weak and insignificant who gets caught in them, but they'll be torn to shreds by people with power and wealth.

I'm so happy, I think I'll dress up like J. Edgar Hoover and sing show tunes.

I would say to the new leadership the American people are ready to meet you if you move forward toward the path of democracy.

I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God.... My books are about killing God.

It is shameful and inhuman to treat men like chattels to make money by, or to regard them merely as so much muscle or physical power.

"I had Krishna and I have lost Him." That is humility.

There is nothing more beautiful than a confident woman.