Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
Socialism never arises in the earlier phases of capitalism, as, for instance, among the pioneers of civilisation in a country where there is plenty of land available for private appropriation by the last comer.
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.
We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.
Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.
I'm an atheist and I thank God for it.
People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.
Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.
Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.
An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.
In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it's more dangerous to lose than to win.
One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.
Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?
The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.