In my youth I hoped to do great things; now I shall be satisfied to get through without scandal.

All people are most credulous when they are most happy.

Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt.

Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.

Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.

I'm not the kind of writer who's able to block out the world around me. I'm mindful of our own haves and have-nots, how our culture often blames and punishes the have-nots. I worry about our precarious economic and political climate.

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards