Hamlet has been played by 5,000 actors, no wonder he is crazy.

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.

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

All art is a revolt against man's fate.

Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.

It's interesting playing something that the audience doesn't fully know.

Faith is not reason's labour, but repose.

We fall privately before we ever fall publicly.

Nice criticism is good when it tells you something. A lot of negative "criticism" isn't criticism at all: it's just nasty, "writerly" cliché and invective.

I found out that many of our Catholics simply don't know what the church teaches, and why, on a lot of issues, and therefore are saying things that they think are okay. They simply don't know.

There is always a pressure to separate the Bible from science and to separate the Christian religion from things material.

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men's blood: I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know.