when we badly want a thing, we go to hunting for good and righteous reasons for it; we give it that fine name to comfort our consciences, whereas we privately know we are only hunting for plausible ones.

It's not the parts of the Bible I don't know that worries me...it's the parts that I do.

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

Independence-is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.

What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those of other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written. Everyday would make a whole book of 80,000 words -- 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man -- the biography of the man himself cannot be written.

No child should be permitted to grow up without exercise for imagination. It enriches life for him. It makes things wonderful and beautiful.

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.