I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it. All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth.

When we demand liberty of a person as a constitutional right, we are taking away from the officials their liberty to chop off people's heads.

So much of unhappiness, it seems to me, is due to nerves; and bad nerves are the result of having nothing to do, or doing a thing badly, unsuccessfully or incompetently. Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do. True happiness comes to those who do their work well, followed by a refreshing period of rest. True happiness comes from the right amount of work for the day.

It is important that man dreams, but it is perhaps equally important that he can laugh at his own dreams.

A cocktail party is a place where you talk with a person you do not know about a subject you have no interest in.

I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living.

If one's bowels move, one is happy, and if they don't move, one is unhappy. That is all there is to it.