The more a man dreams, the less he believes.

Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands.

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

There comes a time in every man's life when he's consumed by the desire to spit on his palms, hoist the black flag and start cutting throats.

A tin horn politician with the manner of a rural corn doctor and the mien of a ham actor

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.

Of learned men, the clergy show the lowest development of professional ethics. Any pastor is free to cadge customers from the divines of rival sects, and to denounce the divines themselves as theological quacks.