This combat between proletariat and plutocracy is, after all, itself a civil war. Two inferiorities struggle for the privilege of polluting the world.

It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. . . . The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.

What makes philosophy so tedious is not the profundity of philosophers, but their lack of art; they are like physicians who soughtto cure a slight hyperacidity by prescribing a carload of burned oyster-shells.

No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man. In the highest confidence there is always a flavor of doubt--a feeling, half instinctive and half logical, that, after all, the scoundrel may have something up his sleeve.

The motive of fear is the be-all and end-all of religion.

The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.

Those who can't teach - administrate. Those who can't administrate - go into politics.