Laws, religions, creeds, and systems of ethics, instead of making society better than its best unit, make it worse than its average unit, because they are never up to date.

When a man of normal habits is ill, everyone hastens to assure him that he is going to recover. When a vegetarian is ill (which fortunately very seldom happens), everyone assures him that he is going to die, and that they told him so, and that it serves him right. They implore him to take at least a little gravy, so as to give himself a chance of lasting out the night

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.

Poverty does not produce unhappiness: It produces degradation.

Sister, you're trying to keep me alive as an old curiosity, but I'm done, I'm finished, I'm going to die.

I am giving you examples of the fact that this creature man, who in his own selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will fight for an idea like a hero. . . . I tell you, gentlemen, if you can shew a man a piece of what he now calls God's work to do, and what he will later call by many new names, you can make him entirely reckless of the consequences to himself personally.

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence... on pain of liquidation.