Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever.

The phase of the usury system which we are trying to analyze is more or less Patterson's perception that the Bank of England could have benefit of all the interest on all the money that it creates out of nothing. ... Now the American citizen can, of course, appeal to his constitution, which states that Congress shall have power to coin money or regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin. Such appeal is perhaps quixotic.

Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it.

A general loathing of a gang or sect usually has some sound basis in instinct.

If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.

The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.