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.

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.

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.

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Be noble minded! Our own heart, and not other men's opinions of us, forms our true honor.

Let tomorrow cross its own rivers.

Mum is the word.

There was no instruction to be thankful that the Christians were special people, chosen people. There was no nationalistic, political or ethnic superiority to be thankful for.

I've done every diet there is.

Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.

There is an appalling amount of mechanical work in the artist's life ... Talent is mysterious, but the qualities that guard, foster, and direct it are not unlike those of a good quartermaster.

Slavery tolerates no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no freedom of opinion.

I love flying buttresses!

The difference between a hero and an also-ran is the guy who hangs on for one last gasp.