When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre.

The chief business of the nation, as a nation, is the setting up of heroes, mainly bogus.

Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."

All the great villainies of history, from the murder of Abel onward, have been perpetrated by sober men, chiefly by Teetotalers.

The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself.

A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man.

War is the only sport which is genuinely amusing. And it is the only sport which has any intelligible use.