What is praise for the living but the wistful hope that someday, somehow, it will be requited?
There will always be witches, because there will always be witch-hunters to supply them.
Humanity will extinguish itself not by suicide, which is too dignified, but by accident, a household mishap like swallowing paint thinner, on a planetary scale.
Inequality is the one unforgivable heresy, and all the conventional pieties conspire to disguise its existence.
Some men feed on opprobrium: the scorn of the crowd assures them of their own unbending integrity.
The illusion it affords of objectivity is conversion’s great appeal: the convert, though once a fanatic, has learned his lesson, and today’s belief is informed exclusively by a sober consideration of its merits.
Quotation device, n. A man whose memory surpasses his wit; whose conversation consists largely or exclusively of other people’s words. Cf. citation device.
No one holds humanity in higher regard than he holds himself.
There is a certain type of purveyor of ideas, too stupid to be anything but candid, which makes him useful, like the canary in a coal mine.
I would far rather be ruled by the football team than the computer club, let alone the debate team, student government, or model U.N.