Suppose the world were only one of God’s jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?
My father must have had some elementary education for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately.
Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation.
If women were as fastidious as men, morally or physically, there would be an end of the race.
The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.
Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.
Man is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites.
I am very sorry, but I cannot learn languages. I have tried hard, only to find that men of ordinary capacity can learn Sanskrit in less time that it takes me to buy a German Dictionary.
If only for a half hour a day, a child should do something serviceable to the community.
I fought linotype and montype for some time because it would not justify as well as handset could be made to do; but at last, as always happens, the machine outdid the hand, and got all the best types on it.
The roulette table pays nobody except him that keeps it. Nevertheless a passion for gaming is common, though a passion for keeping roulette tables is unknown.
In gambling the many must lose in order that the few may win.
When commenting on the turmoil and disorder of the world, If the other planets are inhabited, they must be using this earth as their insane asylum.
It is well to be off with the old woman before you’re on with the new.
We are not taught to think decently on sex subjects, and consequently we have no language for them except indecent language.
We have in England a curious belief in first-rate people, meaning all the people we do not know; and this consoles us for the undeniable second-rateness of the people we do know.
What God hath joined together no man shall put asunder: God will take care of that.
To withhold deserved praise lest it should make its object conceited is as dishonest as to withhold payment of a just debt lest your creditor should spend the money badly.
Reasonable men adapt themselves to their environment; unreasonable men try to adapt their environment to themselves. Thus all progress is the result of the efforts of unreasonable men.
We throw the whole drudgery of creation on one sex, and then imply that no female of any delicacy would initiate any effort in that direction.