Who is wiser: the man who plants flowers along life's way or the man who makes it bristle with thorns?

Despots prefer the friendship of the dog, who, unjustly mistreated and debased, still loves and serves the man who wronged him.

The extension of women's rights is the basic principle of all social progress.

One could judge the degree of civilization of a country by the social and political position of its women

Any civilized administration, however organized, prefers its own good to that of the people.

It is known that the best nations have always been those which concede the greatest amount of liberty to women.

Civilization is a social plague on the planet, and vices are just as necessary to it as is a virus to disease.

Certainly in each social period, youth must be made to venerate the dominant absurdities.

We must, then, apply the principle of Doubt to Civilization; we must doubt its necessity, its excellence, and its permanence.

Hosts of merchants encumber the cities, and the streets are cluttered with solicitors who swarm without limit or purpose.

...commerce, which is mistakenly classified among the productive forms of work, ought to be ranked first among the parasitical professions like those of monk, soldier, lawyer etc.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.

If it were not for the intellectual snobs who pay - in solid cash - the arts would perish with their starving practitioners. Let us thank heaven for hypocrisy.

Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth, comes of Her own accord where fools are not respected, grain is well stored up, and the husband and wife do not quarrel.

A library is a room where the murders take place.

But I dig Negroes. I dig them all the way.

I must create the world in order to breathe in the world; I don't exist unless I create.

I am a shadow’s shade, a lunatic, perhaps, Of two dark moons.

Humans have more moral responsibility perhaps, because they are capable of reasoning.

A good sermon is going to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. It inspires you. It provokes you. It should make your soul soar.

To make our morality center on forbidden acts is to defile the imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow men a secret element of gusto.