The more a man dreams, the less he believes |
The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. |
The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who Is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are. |
The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse - that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it |
The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse - that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it |
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair. |
The notion that artists flourish upon adversity and misunderstanding, that they are able to function to the utmost in an atmosphere of indifference or hostility - this notion is nine-tenths nonsense |
The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about them |
The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think |
The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology. |
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. |
The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety. |
The only kind of freedom that the mob can imagine is freedom to annoy and oppress its betters, and that is precisely the kind that we mainly have |
The only really happy folk are married women and single men. |
The only way to success in American public life lies in flattering and kowtowing to the mob. |