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

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.

There is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it.

Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.

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.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

The only thing wrong with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was that it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.

Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.

The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretenses.

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

It is the classic fallacy of our time that a moron run through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will thereby cease to be a moron.

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don’t have brains enough to be honest.

Fools call wise men fools. A wise man never calls any man a fool.

Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool.

Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.

Don’t fool yourself, my dear. You’re much worse than a bitch. You’re a saint. Which shows why saints are dangerous and undesirable.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.

Fine clothes may disguise, but silly words will disclose a fool.