Everything Quotes

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

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

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.

Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.

Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

Wealth - any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband.

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

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.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong.

No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.

The only really happy folk are married women and single men.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

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.

It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.

To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess.

Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.

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

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

I believe it is impossible to be sure of anything.

The object of rewards is to encourage; that of punishments, to prevent. If rewards are high, then what the ruler wants will be quickly effected; if punishments are heavy, what he does not want will be swiftly prevented.

The Way is the beginning of the ten thousand things and the guiding thread of truth and falsity.

The Way of an enlightened ruler is to make it so that no minister may make a proposal and then fail to match it with actions and results.

A wise ruler, when he makes his laws, is bound to find himself in conflict with the world.

The severe household has no fierce slaves, while it is the affectionate mother who has the prodigal son.

The ruler who possesses methods of government does not follow the good that happens by chance but practices according to necessary principles. Law, methods, and power must be employed for government: these constitute its 'necessary principles.'

The intelligent ruler does not value people who are of themselves good without rewards and punishments. Why is that? The laws of the state cannot be neglected, and it is not one man who is being ruled.

A wise man, when he writes a book, sets forth his arguments fully and clearly; an enlightened ruler, when he makes his laws, sees to it that every contingency is provided for in detail.

A ruler makes use of the majority and neglects the minority, and so he does not devote himself to virtue but to law.

The duties of the ruler are like those of the helmsman of a great ship. From his lofty position, he makes slight movements with his hands, and the ship, of itself, follows his desires and moves. This is the way whereby the one may control the ten thousand and by quiescence may regulate activity.