Wherein lies a poet's claim to originality? That he invents his incidents? No. That he was present when his episodes had their birth? No. That he was first to repeat them? No. None of these things has any value. He confers on them their only originality that has any value, and that is his way of telling them.

I have spent most of my life worrying about things that have never happened.

Italy is the home of art and swindling; home of religion and moral rottenness

Remember this, take this to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

When I want to read something nice, I sit down and write it myself.

[N]o country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more.

Let your secret sympathies and your compassion be always with the under dog in the fight -- this is magnanimity; but bet on the other one -- this is business.