“On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

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.

Desire makes everything blossom.

When I say I want to become a legend, some people say it’s pretentious. For me, it’s a challenge. My desire, a dream. I’m not saying I’ll get there, but it’s what I want.

A problem only exists if there is a difference between what is actually happening and what you desire to be happening.

I desire to press in my arms the loveliness which has not yet come into the world.

All people have the common desire to be elevated in honour, but all people have something still more elevated in themselves without knowing it.

Intense, burning desire is the motivational force that enables you to overcome any obstacle and achieve almost any goal.

The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world and in the world hereafter.

The very desire to be certain, to be secure, is the beginning of bondage.It’s only when the mind is not caught in the net of certainty, and is not seeking certainty, that it is in a state of discovery.