The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.

But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe...that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market... That at any rate is the theory of our constitution.

It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

Poverty comes pleading not for charity, for the most part, but imploring us to find a purchaser for its unmarketable wares.

History has to be rewritten because history is the selection of those threads of causes or antecedents that we are interested in.

It is perfectly easy to be original by violating the laws of decency and the canons of good taste.

The very minute a thought is threatened with publicity it seems to shrink towards mediocrity.