We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

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.

When you read a biography remember that the truth is never fit for publication.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

All great art and literature is propaganda.

Be like the sun and meadow, which are not in the least concerned about the coming winter.

We are compelled by the theory of God's already achieved perfection to make Him a devil as well as a god, because of the existenceof evil. The god of love, if omnipotent and omniscient, must be the god of cancer and epilepsy as well.... Whoever admits that anything living is evil must either believe that God is malignantly capable of creating evil, or else believe that God has made many mistakes in His attempts to make a perfect being.