The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.

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 as important as passion. No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate.

My parents were vegetarians. I'd show up at school, this giant black kid, with none of the cool clothes and a tofu sandwich and celery sticks.

Who doesn't want to be famous? I am famous. I'm dying to be on TV.

I learned at that young age that sometimes a really big chance pays off.

I've been to the top and I've been to the bottom more times than most people ride in an elevator.

I think an encore is perfectly acceptable, but I find it so weird when people do two or three.

When you're young you don't know anything, but you have lot of energy to express yourself. So you make a lot of mistakes and you stumble, but you also get a lot of truth from within.

Perhaps it is historically true that no order of society ever perishes save by its own hand.

You must put the essence of what you want to say into a painting. The rest is arbitrary. Chosen with discernment, but chosen, and choice involves elimination.

but it's so hard to dance that way when it's cold and there's no music.