“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.”

After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.

There are two kinds of Europeans: The smart ones, and those who stayed behind.

It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.

Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.

Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful.

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

You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”

The desire to please other people is a potent way to distract yourself from what you are feeling.

Freedom is a spontaneous letting go of all desire and effort.

You want me to be all doom and gloom, or just shut up?

Hope is a memory that desires, the memory is a memory that has enjoyed.

What we truly desire is living without desire.

The great majority of men, especially in France, both desire and possess a fashionable woman, much in the way one might own a fine horse – as a luxury befitting a young man.

Power over the self and no desire to control anything else.

The fewer the desires, the more peace.