In all cities, the better classes - the business men - are the sources of corruption, but they are so rarely pursued and caught that we do not fully realize whence the trouble comes.

Keep your baby eyes (which are the eyes of genius) on what we don't know

It is our knowledge - the things we are sure of - that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning.

I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.

If we would vote in mass on the more promising ticket, or, if the two are equally bad, would throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in - then, I say, the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it.

My father, the practical joker, did not care for practical jokes on himself; he did not encourage the practice in me.

We need some great failures. Especially we ever-successful Americans - conscious, intelligent, illuminating failures.