Government has become ungovernable; that is, it cannot leave off governing. Law has become lawless; that is, it cannot see where laws should stop. The chief feature of our time is the meekness of the mob and the madness of the government.

Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.

People decided that it was impossible to achieve any of the good of Socialism, but they comforted themselves by achieving all the bad.

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

The life of a thinking man will probably be divided into two parts -- the first in which he desires to exterminate modern thinkers, and the second in which he desires to watch them exterminating each other. ... Suppose, for instance, there is an old story and a new skeptic who is skeptical of the story. We have only to wait a little while for a yet newer skeptic who is skeptical of the skeptic. He will probably find the old notion actually a help in his new notion. This process is an abstract truth applying to anything, apart from agreement or disagreement.

The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.