The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. To be sure, theology is always yielding a little to the progress of knowledge, and only a Holy Roller in the mountains of Tennessee would dare to preach today what the popes preached in the Thirteenth Century, but this yielding is always done grudgingly, and thus lingers a good while behind the event.

History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men.

[Government's] great contribution to human wisdom...is the discovery that the taxpayer has more than one pocket.

The common man knows exactly what he wants...and deserves to get it good and hard.

Fame: an embalmer trembling with stage fright.

The only guarantee of the Bill of Rights which continues to have any force and effect is the one prohibiting quartering troops on citizens in time of peace. All the rest have been disposed of by judicial interpretation and legislative whittling.

Every autobiography ... becomes an absorbing work of fiction, with something of the charm of a cryptogram.