The believing mind is externally impervious to evidence. The most that can be accomplished with it is to induce it to substitute one delusion for another. It rejects all overt evidence as wicked.

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.

Love others, not because they deserve your love, but because you want to win their heart to create enduring peace.

[His] leaving had stabbed her heart. This organ was not inclined to forgive her for vulnerability.

Pa he always said a man had to look spry for himself because nobody would do it for him your opportunities didn't come knocking around you had to hunt them down and hog-tie them.

First grade was - I spoke only Spanish, and second grade - probably a bit more English. And by the time I hit third grade, I was learning, of course, much, much more English.

The soldier 's courage and sacrifice is full of glory , expressing devotion to country , to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious , and we must never trumpet it as such.

For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.

If we need simple narratives so people can amplify and spread them, are we forced to engage only with the simplest of problems?

I want to conquer the world and it seems like my own family is putting a stop to that.

God is using your present circumstances to make you more useful for later roles in His unfolding story.

It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.