“Is it possible that nobody has ever known that there never has been a completely civilized man, and won’t be for another thousand years?”

Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead.

Since dictating the Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it,

What are these unheard of sins you condemn so much – and like so well?

Sure of itself, it bullies other civilizations, as a traveling salesman in a brown derby conquers the wisdom of China and tacks advertisements of cigarettes over arches for centuries dedicated to the sayings of Confucius.

Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.

An it isn’t so much that the church is in bondage to Big Business and doctrines as laid down by millionaires – though a lot of churches are that, too.

When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.

A sensational event was changing from the brown suit to the gray the contents of his pockets. He was earnest about these objects. They were of eternal importance, like baseball or the Republican Party.

Being a man given to oratory and high principles, he enjoyed the sound of his own vocabulary and the warmth of his own virtue.

The game (baseball)was a custom of his clan, and it gave outlet for the homicidal and sides-taking instincts which Babbitt called “patriotism” and “love of sport.”

Writers kid themselves-about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods.

In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent businessman.

You,” Said Dr. Yavitch, “are a middle-road liberal, and you haven’t the slightest idea what you want.

It isn’t what you earn but how spend it that fixes your class.

God has never done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it.

I was brought up to believe that the Christian God wasn’t a scared and compromising public servant, but the creator of the whole merciless truth, and I reckon that training spoiled me – I actually took my teachers seriously!

All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Dayis devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere.

They had always told me that I wrote like a man.

The most important thing is insight, that is to be – curious – to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does.

The love we have in our youth is superficial compared to the love that an old man has for his old wife.