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.

Any defeat, however trivial, may be fatal to a savior of the plain people. They never admire a messiah with a bloody nose.

The chief knowledge that's man on from reading books is the knowledge that very few of them are worth reading.

Any man who, having a child or children he can't support, proceeds to have another should be sterilized at once.

The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scientists unable to shake off altogether the piety absorbed with their mother's milk.

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.

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.