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

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.

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.

Watching two men jib and jab for 12 rounds is not entertaining for me. I want action, knockouts, big shots, and people getting up off the canvas. That’s my ideal fight.

We are made up of two contrasting ideals: Love And Fear. Pick One and Live.

The great artist is a slave to his ideals.

Basically, I wake up at nine o’clock in the morning, go to different record stores, go to the studio, think up different ideas for songs. Just workin’.

The Soviet government is the most realistic regime in the world – no ideals.

A film is its own thing and in an ideal world I think a film should be discovered knowing nothing and nothing should be added to it and nothing should be subtracted from it.

Politics, when it is an art and a service, not an exploitation, is about acting for an ideal through realities.

There is less difference than many suppose between the ideal Socialist system, in which the big businesses are run by the State, and the present Capitalist system, in which the State is run by the big businesses.