All this struggling and striving to make the world better is a great mistake. Not that it's wrong to try to improve the world if you know how but simply because struggling and striving are the worst possible ways to go about doing anything!

In your dread of dictators you established a state of society in which every ward boss is a dictator, every private employer a dictator, every financier a dictator, all with the livelihood of the workers at his mercy, and no public responsibility.

Start with the belief that your life can indeed be changed, and that you have the power to change it.

Financiers live in a world of illusion. They count on something which they call the capital of the country, which has no existence.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!

It's just as unpleasant to get more than you bargain for as to get less.

With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his. . . . It would positively be a relief to me to dig him up and throw stones at him.