A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.
I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.
It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.
I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.
Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
Honor is simply the morality of superior men.
Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.
Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.
Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.
Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.
Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.
Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.
When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.
Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.
Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.
The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
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.
Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.
I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.