Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy. It is an art like any other. Its virtuosi are called altruists.
The worshiper is the father of the gods.
The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous.
Wife: one who is sorry she did it, but would undoubtedly do it again.
The music critic, Huneber, could never quite make up his mind about a new symphony until he had seen the composer’s mistress.
The worst of marriage is that it makes a woman believe that all other men are just as easy to fool.
I am a strict monogamist: it is twenty years since I last went to bed with two women at once, and then I was in my cups and not myself.
No normal man ever fell in love after thirty when the kidneys begin to disintegrate.
Women have a hard enough time in this world: telling them the truth would be too cruel.
Only a jackass ever talks over his affairs with a woman, whether she be his sweetheart, wife, or sister, or mother.
Man makes love by braggadocio, and woman makes love by listening.
Man’s objection to love is that it dies hard; woman’s, that when it is dead, it stays dead.
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin or when he sees silver he looks for the cloud it lines. A wise happy person does the exact opposite.
There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly.
The State is not force alone. It depends upon the credulity of man quite as much as upon his docility. Its aim is not merely to make him obey, but also to make him want to obey.
A great literature is chiefly the product of inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.
Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted.
One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing.
The American people, taking one with another, constitute the most timorous, snivelling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of serfs and goosesteppers ever gathered under one flag in Christendom since the end of the Middle Ages.
It is more blessed to give than receive; for example, wedding presents.