Government, like any other organism, refuses to acquiesce in its own extinction. This refusal, of course, involves the resistance to any effort to diminish its powers and prerogatives.

Man, at his best, remains a sort of one-lunged animal, never completely rounded and perfect, as a cockroach, say, is perfect.

The motive of fear is the be-all and end-all of religion.

The theatre, when all is said and done, is not life in miniature, but life enormously magnified, life hideously exaggerated.

New York: A third-rate Babylon.

Well, I tell you, if I have been wrong in my agnosticism, when I die I'll walk up to God in a manly way and say, Sir, I made an honest mistake.

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