“They use everything about the hog except the squeal.”

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

One of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption.

I don’t know whether anyone will care to examine my heart, but if they do, they will find two words there- ‘social justice.’ For that is what I have believed in and fought for.

But I have a conscience and a religious faith, and I know that our liberties were not won without suffering, and may be lost again through our cowardice. I intend to do my duty to my country.

Human beings suffer agonies, and their sad fates become legends; poets write verses about them and playwrights compose dramas, and the remembrance of past grief becomes a source of present pleasure – such is the strange alchemy of the spirit.

I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.

You can’t make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it.

Wall Street had been doing business with pieces of paper; and now someone asked for a dollar, and it was discovered that the dollar had been mislaid.

The remedy [for the Great Depression] is to give the workers access to the means of production, and let them produce for themselves, not for others, . . . the American way.

Over the vast plain I wander, observing a thousand strange and incredible and terrifying manifestations of the Bootstrap-lifting impulse.

The supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in all its operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of mind; that it banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity, it canonizes incompetence.

In the twilight, it was a vision of power.

But the devil is a subtle worm; he does not give up at one defeat, for he knows human nature, and the strength of the forces which battle for him.

We define journalism in America as the business and practice of presenting the news of the day in the interest of economic privilege.

Turn over the pages of history and read the damning record of the church’s opposition to every advance in every field of science. . . .

The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery.

We possess nothing certainly except the past.

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.

Being rich means you get to worry about everything except money.

The most marvellous instrument which men have yet invented, the telescope and the steam engine not excepted.

What is youth except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen.

Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.

Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.

No particular motive for living, except the custom and habit of it.