Experience is a poor guide to man, and is seldom followed. What really teaches a man is not experience, but observation.

Religion deserves no more respect than a pile of garbage.

A sound American is simply one who has put out of his mind all doubts and questionings, and who accepts instantly, and as incontrovertible gospel, the whole body of official doctrine of his day, whatever it may be and no matter how often it may change. The instant he challenges it, no matter how timorously and academically, he ceases by that much to be a loyal and creditable citizen of the republic.

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant.

Henry James would have been vastly improved as a novelist by a few whiffs of the Chicago stockyard.

When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.

After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done.