The art of manipulating public opinion, which is a necessary art for the democratic politician, and, like other arts, is sometimespractised with greater virtuosity by knaves than by honest men (who are apt to disdain it), has a different technique in different countries. For instance, in England we excel in whitewashing: in America they excel in tarring and feathering. We strain our nerves and stretch our consciences to avoid a scandal: Americans do the same to make one.

The American white relegates the black to the rank of shoeshine boy; and he concludes from this that the black is good for nothing but shining shoes.

When I see that the nineteenth century has crowned the idolatry of Art with the deification of Love, so that every poet is supposed to have pierced to the holy of holies when he has announced that Love is the Supreme, or the Enough, or the All, I feel that Art was safer in the hands of the most fanatical of Cromwell's major generals than it will be if ever it gets into mine.

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful.

I become more convinced that beings from other planets are using the Earth as a lunatic asylum

I assume that to prevent illness in later life, you should never have been born at all.