Power is sweet; it is a drug, the desire for which increases with a habit.

I don't like the spirit of socialism - I think freedom is the basis of everything.

The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.

Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?

My own belief is that in most ages and in most places obscure psychological forces led men to adopt systems involving quite unnecessary cruelty, and that this is still the case among the most civilized races at the present day.

Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.

All human activity is prompted by desire.