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

There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.

It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

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.

When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.

Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.

Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

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.

Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”

Were the diver to think on the jaws of the shark, he would never lay hands on the precious pearl.

Under the influence of fear, which always leads men to take a pessimistic view of things, they magnified their enemies’ resources, and minimized their own.

We only desperately try to save in others what we fear losing in ourselves.

Fear is the cheapest room in the house.

The first thing brought forth by the study of any religion, ancient or modern, is that it is based upon Fear, born of it, fed by it — and that it cultivates the source from which its nourishment is derived.

Think not I dread to see my spirit fly, Through the dark gates of fell mortality; Death has no terrors when the life is true; ‘Tis living ill that makes us fear to die.

I fear God and next to God I mostly fear them that fear him not.

I fear God the most, but after Him, I fear those who don’t fear Him.