Human progress is furthered, not by conformity, but by aberration.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.

We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.

The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.

If I ever mary, it will be on a suddn impulse - as aman shoots himself

The State doesn't just want you to obey, it wants to make you WANT to obey.

One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched.