No sane man, employing an American plumber to repair a leaky drain, would expect him to do it at the first trial, and in precisely the same way no sane man, observing an American Secretary of State in negotiation with Englishmen and Japs, would expect him to come off better than second best. Third-rate men, of course, exist in all countries, but it is only here that they are in full control of the state, and with it of all the national standards.

Democracy is grounded upon so childish a complex of fallacies that they must be protected by a rigid system of taboos, else even half-wits would argue it to pieces.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

How long will the human race sweat under the superstition that, in order to be happy and useful and intelligent, it is necessary to believe in things? What nonsense indeed! Human progress consists, not in acquiring beliefs, but in getting rid of them.

LOVER. An apprentice second husband; victim no. 2 in the larval stage.

The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.

ADULTERY. Democracy applied to love.

The virulence of the national appetite for bogus revelation.

The public . . . demands certainties. . . . But there are no certainties.

Courtroom: a place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the odds in favor of Judas.