"There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor."

"Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses."

"Race relations never improve in war time; they always worsen. And it is when the boys come home the Ku Klux Klans are organized. I believe with George Schuyler that the only really feasible way to improve the general situation of the American Negro is to convince more and more whites that he is, as men go in this world, a decent fellow, and that amicable living with him is not only possible but desirable. Every threat of mass political pressure, every appeal to political mountebanks, only alarms the white brother, and so postpones the day of reasonable justice."

"Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience."

"Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends."

"All government, of course, is against liberty."

"Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

"But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant."

"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable."

"A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable."

"Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies."

"Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem-neat, plausible, and wrong."

"If after I depart this vale you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl."

"No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."

"Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed."

"I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing."