Hypocrites weep, and you cannot tell their tears from those of saints; but no bad man ever laughed sweetly yet.

For Pastrasche was their alpha and omega; their treasury and granary; their store of gold and wand of wealth; their bread-winner and minister; their only friend and comforter. ... Pastrasche was their dog.

There is nothing that you may not get people to believe in if you will only tell it them loud enough and often enough, till the welkin rings with it.

Hypocrites weep, and you cannot tell their tears from those of saints; but no bad man ever laughed sweetly yet.

The fire of true enthusiasm is like the fires of Baku, which no water can ever quench, and which burn steadily on from night to day, and year to year, because their well-spring is eternal.

Great men have always had dogs.

[On Christianity:] Its lip-service and its empty rites have made it the easiest of all tasks for the usurer to cloak his cruelties, the miser to hide his avarice, the lawyer to condone his lies, the sinner of all social sins to purchase the social immunity from them by outward deference to churches.