I sing, not arms and the hero, but the philosophic man: he who seeks in contemplation to discover the inner will of the world, ininvention to discover the means of fulfilling that will, and in action to do that will by the so-discovered means.

I love little children too but I don't cut off their heads and stick them in vases.

Without music we shall surely perish of drink, morphia, and all sorts of artificial exaggerations of the cruder delights of the senses.

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read.

The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

The notion that the colonel need be a better man than the private is as confused as the notion that the keystone need be stronger than the coping stone.

It's so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.