The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.

In every woman's life there is one real and consuming love. But very few women guess which one it is.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.

Men always try to make virtues of their weaknesses. Fear of death and fear of life both become piety.

All talk of winning the people by appealing to their intelligence, of conquering them by impeccable syllogism, is so much moonshine.

Socialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master.

Henry James would have been vastly improved as a novelist by a few whiffs of the Chicago stockyard.