The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse-that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it.

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.

A beautiful thing happens when we start paying attention to each other. It is by participating more in your relationship that you breathe life into it.

All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories.

Only knowledge and truth may result in freedom of mind.

You have to be a two people

Those that have lost their lives to suicide were good people, who were in deep, deep pain. Keep speaking about mental illness and keep it out of the darkness.

When I see a head from a great distance, it ceases to be a sphere and becomes an extreme confusion falling down into the abyss.

I have other duties equally sacred ... Duties to myself.

I'm [going] through a mystified period of my life, where the more I learn, the less I know.

Everyone is beautiful to someone.

The Americans, like the English, probably make love worse than any other race.