All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine.

The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous; the way to lose him is to keep him a little more jealous.

The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda - a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make 'good' citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens.

A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.

When I think of anything properly describable as a beautiful idea, it is always in the form of music. I have written and printed probably 10,000,000 words in English but all the same I shall die an inarticulate man, for my best ideas beset me in a language I know only vaguely and speak only as a child.

Without a doubt there are women who would vote intelligently. There are also men who knit socks beautifully.

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.