The most satisfying and ecstatic faith is almost purely agnostic. It trusts absolutely without professing to know at all.

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.

The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is to deny that it exists.

What restrains us from killing is partly fear of punishment, partly moral scruple, and partly what may be described as a sense of humor

No sane man objects to palpable lies about him; what he objects to is damaging facts.

There is no record in the history of a nation that ever gained anything valuable by being unable to defend itself.

What are the characters that I discern most clearly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon type of man? I may answer at once that two stickout above all others. One is his curious and apparently incurable incompetence--his congenital inability to do any difficult thing easily and well, whether it be isolating a bacillus or writing a sonata. The other is his astounding susceptibility to fears and alarms--in short, his hereditary cowardice.... There is no record in history of any Anglo-Saxon nation entering upon any great war without allies.