“Most people want security in this world, not liberty.”

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Journalism is to politician as dog is to lamp-post.

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

The State doesn’t just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.

The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived.

Sometimes the idiots outvote the sensible people.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.

The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it’s good-bye to the Bill of Rights.

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.

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

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence she finds it almost impossible to get a husband: she simply cannot go on listening without snickering.

Do we mean love, when we say love?

Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?

There are two ways, one is right; the other is wrong. If your work is only about right, then it is wrong.

No one came to earth empty; everybody came with a contribution to make to their generation. Most of them never find that gift and even more die never releasing it.

Oh East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.

The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.

Year by year, the monkey’s mask reveals the monkey.