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.
If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.
Human progress is furthered, not by conformity, but by aberration.
There is always a sheet of paper. There is always a pen. There is always a way out.
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
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.
Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
There are two kinds of books. Those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.
There are two kinds of music; German music and bad music.
In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.
No man is worthy of unlimited reliance-his treason, at best, only waits for sufficient temptation.
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind – that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas.
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.
The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it.
Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.
It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.