The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be indignant about them.

A great literature is thus chiefly the product of doubting and inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.

History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men.

To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the average pedagogue teaches.

It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.

A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.

The state remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.