I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by mankind.

We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.

A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century.

As long as you represent me as praising alcohol I shall not complain. It is, I believe, the greatest of human inventions, and by far - much greater than Hell, the radio or the bichloride tablet.

Whenever "A" attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon "B," "A" is most likely a scoundrel.

American journalism (like the journalism of any other country) is predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right.