A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them.

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

Genius: the ability to prolong one's childhood.

As long as the Southern colleges have revivals on their campuses and students get converted to Methodism and join the YMCA and are accepted as gentlemen, it will be impossible to think of the South as civilized...The educated folk of the Old South took theology lightly, and religion to them was hardly more than a charming ritual, useful on solemn occassions.

Capital punishment has probably been responsible for a good deal of human progress. The overwhelming majority of those executed were of the sort whose departures for bliss eternal improved the average intelligence and decency of the race.

Capitalism under democracy has a further advantage: its enemies, even when it is attacked, are scattered and weak, and it is usually easily able to array one half of them against the other half, and thus dispose of both.

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.