You know, the Philistines have long since discarded the rack and stake as a means of suppressing the opinions they feared: they've discovered a much more deadly weapon of destruction -- the wisecrack.

The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

It is astonishing how many books I find there is no need for me to read at all.

I never met an author who admitted that people did not buy his book because it was dull.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.