If you want to destroy a nation, give it too much - make it greedy, miserable and sick.

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.

For every man in the world functions to the best of his ability, and no one does less than his best, no matter what he may think about it.

I guess this is why I hate governments, all governments. It is always the rule, the fine print, carried out by fine-print men. There's nothing to fight, no wall to hammer with frustrated fists.

What some people find in religion a writer may find in his craft...a kind of breaking through to glory.

There is one thing pleasantly unconfusing about medicine. The direction and the end are fixed and the patient never works backward.

A strange species we are, We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much, and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy, sick. --John Steinbeck to Adlai Stevenson