I know of no existing nation that deserves to live, and I know of very few individuals.

The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.

The life of man in this world is like the life of a fly in a room filled with 100 boys, each armed with a fly-swatter.

To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the average pedagogue teaches.

Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn

Such is the art of writing as Dreiser understands it and practices it--an endless piling up of minutiae, an almost ferocious tracking down of ions, electrons and molecules, an unshakable determination to tell it all. One is amazed by the mole-like diligence of the man, and no less by his exasperating disregard for the ease of his readers.

The average man never really thinks from end to end of his life. The mental activity of such people is only a mouthing of cliches. What they mistake for thought is simply a repetition of what they have heard. My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human race goes through life without having a single original thought.