The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.

Pastor: One employed by the wicked to prove to them by his example that virtue doesn't pay.

Skin diseases are something doctors like, the patient neither dies nor gets well.

Since the early days, [the church] has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was an apologist for the divine right of kings.

I think the Negro people should feel secure enough by now to face a reasonable ridicule without terror. I am unalterably opposed to all efforts to put down free speech, whatever the excuse.

I am, in fact, the complete anti-Messiah, and detest converts almost as much as I detest missionaries. My writings, such as they are, have had only one purpose: to attain for H. L. Mencken that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.

What the meaning of human life may be I don't know: I incline to suspect that it has none.