Flowers and fruit are only the beginning. In the seed lies the life and the future.
Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.
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.
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.
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?
People always talk about good time rock and roll, Chuck Berry or whatever, like this liberating force for feeling good. But what I need in my life is to be liberated into feeling bad. Not sad. I have plenty of sad. What I need is a place where I can spray anger in sparks like a gnarled piece of electrical cable. Just be mad at stuff and soak in the helplessness.
The thing with me, I can't talk about my work. I find it very difficult.
Whathat!" Tyson gasped. "Those are the stables for the pegasi," I replied, "You know, winged horses?" "Whasthat!" "Um. . . those are the toilets.
A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness.