There are no mute, inglorious Miltons, save in the hallucinations of poets. The one sound test of a Milton is that he functions as a Milton.
The physical business of writing is unpleasant to me, but the psychic satisfaction of discharging bad ideas in worse English makes me forget it.
The central difficulty lies in the fact that all of the sciences have made such great progress during the last century that they have got quite beyond the reach of man.
Haste is of the devil. Slowness is of God.
Nietzsche, to the end of his days, remained a Russian pastor’s son, and hence two-thirds of a Puritan; he erected his war upon holiness, toward the end, into a sort of holy war.
He marries best who puts it off until it is too late.
Philosophy, as the modern world knows it, is only intellectual club-swinging.
The artist is not a reporter, but a Great Teacher. It is not his business to depict the world as it is, but as it ought to be.
The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads.
What makes philosophy so tedious is not the profundity of philosophers, but their lack of art; they are like physicians who soughtto cure a slight hyperacidity by prescribing a carload of burned oyster-shells.
Save among politicians it is no longer necessary for any educated American to profess belief in Thirteenth Century ideas.
People say we need religion when what they really mean is we need police.
Everyman is thoroughly happy twice in his life, just after he has met his first love, and just after he has left his last one.
To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason.
The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation.
Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses.
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 inevitably 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 even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.
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. The objection to it is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in sense.
It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods. If such a board actually exists it operates precisely like the board of a corporation that is losing money.
Government today is growing too strong to be safe. There are no longer any citizens in the world there are only subjects. They work day in and day out for their masters they are bound to die for their masters at call. Out of this working and dying they tend to get less and less.