One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable.

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.

We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had any experience with them.

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.

If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish.

Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too.

Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner's inquest.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

The only really happy folk are married women and single men.

Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

Honor is simply the morality of superior men.

It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.