The essence of self-fulfillment and autonomous culture is an unshakable egotism.

The worst of marriage is that it makes a woman believe that all men are just as easy to fool.

My guess is that well over eighty per cent. of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.

The average woman must inevitably view her actual husband with a certain disdain; he is anything but her ideal. In consequence, she cannot help feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the fact that he is their father.

Culture itself is neither education nor law-making: it is an atmosphere and a heritage.

All American wars (except the Civil War) have been fought with the odds overwhelmingly in favor of the Americans. In the history of armed combat such affairs as the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars must be ranked, not as wars at all, but as organized assassinations. In the two World Wars, no American faced a bullet until his adversaries had been worn down by years of fighting others.

Everyman is thoroughly happy twice in his life, just after he has met his first love, and just after he has left his last one.