... if we have a dollar to spend on some wild excess, we shall spend it on a book, not on asparagus out of season.

Conventional manners are a kind of literacy test for the alien who comes among us.

There are only three things worthwhile -- fighting, drinking, and making love.

Originality usually amounts only to plagiarizing something unfamiliar.

... the more we recruit from immigrants who bring no personal traditions with them, the more America is going to ignore the things of the spirit. No one whose consuming desire is either for food or for motor-cars is going to care about culture, or even know what it is.

Successful socialism depends on the perfectibility of man. Unless all, or nearly all, men are high-minded and clear-sighted, it isbound to be a rotten failure in any but a physical sense. Even through it is altruism, socialism means materialism. You can guarantee the things of the body to every one, but you cannot guarantee the things of the spirit to every one; you can guarantee only that the opportunity to seek them shall not be denied to any one who chooses to seek them.

Social distinctions concern themselves ultimately with whom you may and may not marry.