“People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?”

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.

Government’s great contribution to human wisdom is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

No professional politician is ever actually in favor of public economy. It is his implacable enemy, and he knows it. All professional politicians are dedicated wholeheartedly to waste and corruption. They are the enemies of every decent man.

The ideal way to get rid of any infectious disease would be to shoot instantly every person who comes down with it.

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

Socialist: A man suffering from an overwhelming conviction to believe what is not true.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

There’s really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal.

The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.

The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.

Change is not progress.

A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.

A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.

There is no rampart that will hold out against malice.

There’s just enough drinking and cheating songs around without me adding to them. Unless you’ve got something better than “Misery and Gin” by Merle Haggard, you’re beating a dead horse.

Be proud of yourself. Try to eat well…and when you cheat, enjoy it!

No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.

No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it. Do not look back on happiness — or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it.

I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating.

I had a few dating disasters along the way with girls cheating on me. One girl was the inspiration for me singing ‘Cry Me A River’ on ‘The X Factor.’ That was my payback to her because she was unfaithful.