Government, like any other organism, refuses to acquiesce in its own extinction. This refusal, of course, involves the resistance to any effort to diminish its powers and prerogatives.

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.

The music brought us what it seemed / We had long desired, but in a form / so rarefied there was no emptiness of sensation

It was a sign of how worried and confused I was that I wasn’t completely distracted by the sight of his powerful thighs flexed in front of me.

As they sang the hobbit felt in love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves.

The library was quiet. It was busy but it was quiet and I thought it must be like this in a monastery where you had company and sympathy but your thoughts were your own.

We may hop when the gods say 'frog, ' but we still get to choose how fast and how high.

I'm kind of harsher than most people.

Doing a half-hour TV show is a dream

Integrity eclipses image.

By not knowing, not hoping to know and not acting like we know what's happening, we begin to access our inner strength.

A determination never to do what is wrong, prudence, and good-humor, will go far toward securing to you the estimation of the world.