Great artists are modest almost as seldom as they are faithful to their wives.

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.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

How then find the courage for action?... By accepting the human condition more simply and candidly by dreading troubles less calculating less hoping more.

The public is always right.

Fortify yourself with a flock of friends! There is always at least one who will understand, inspire, and give you the lift you may need at the time.

But history is neither watchmaking nor cabinet construction. It is an endeavor toward better understanding.

You will not even have enough time to go online and download all the patches to your computer before it is infected.

The stock market and economy are two different things.

You don't go through a deep personal transformation without some kind of dark night of the soul.

Ivory towers are as rare as bowling alleys in tribal cultures.

The real value of tests is not that they detect bugs in the code but that they detect inadequacies in the methods, concentration, and skills of those who design and produce the code.