“Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.”

There is no more desire to live past one’s time than to die before it.

If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that some will not think is unjust and unreasonable.

When asked for advice by beginners. Know your ending, I say, or the river of your story may finally sink into the desert sands and never reach the sea.

The Earth should not be cut up into hundreds of different sections, each inhabited by a self-defined segment of humanity that considers its own welfare and its own “national security” to be paramount above all other consideration.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.

The tyranny that now exists is actual. That which may exist in the future is potential. If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice.

I wish that I could say I was optimistic about the human race. I love us all, but we are so stupid and shortsighted that I wonder if we can lift our eyes to the world about us long enough not to commit suicide.

At odd and unpredictable times, we cling in fright to the past .

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

Intelligence is an accident of evolution, and not necessarily an advantage.

It is well-known that the friend of a conqueror is but the last victim.

Old people think young people haven’t learned about love. Young people think old people have forgotten about love.

Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies.

The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.

To make discoveries, you have to be curious about why the universe is the way it is.

However much you study, you cannot know without action. A donkey laden with books is neither an intellectual nor a wise man. Empty of essence, what learning has he whether upon him is firewood or book?

That individual who reads useful books is no longer on the same plane of thinking as those who neglected them.

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

The unbeliever knows his Koran best.

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.

You know, I don’t only play for the record books.

He who learns, and makes no use of his learning, is a beast of burden with a load of books. Does the ass comprehend whether he carries on his back a library or a bundle of faggots?

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.