I can't imagine a genuinely intelligent boy getting much out of college, even out of a good college, save it be a cynical habit of mind.

We have had more brilliant Presidents than Cleveland, and one or two who were considerably more profound, but we have never had one, at least since Washington, whose fundamental character was solider and more admirable.

Culture itself is neither education nor law-making: it is an atmosphere and a heritage.

A man full of faith is simply one who has lost the capacity for clear and realistic thought.

The scent of frying astronomers long ago ceased to ascend to Yahweh.

The movies today are too rich to have any room for genuine artists. They produce a few passable craftsmen, but no artists. Can you imagine a Beethoven making $100, 000 a year?

It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.