Society and the World

The flunkeyism propagated by the throne is the price we pay for its political convenience.

Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation.

The Court is the servant's hall of the sovereign.

He who slays a king and he who dies for him are alike idolaters.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination. When the process is interrupted by adversity at a critical age, as in the case of Charles II, the subject becomes sane and never completely recovers his kingliness.

When the wooden idol does not answer the peasant's prayer, he beats it: when the flesh and blood idol does not satisfy the civilized man, he cuts its head off.

A limited monarchy is a device for combining the inertia of a wooden idol with the credibility of a flesh and blood one.

The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters.

The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

Do not love your neighbor as yourself. If you are on good terms with yourself it is an impertinence: if on bad, an injury.

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

WHEN I GET A LITTLE MONEY, I BUY BOOKS; AND IF ANY IS LEFT, I BUY FOOD AND CLOTHES.

You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.

FROM THE BEGINNING MEN USED GOD TO JUSTIFY THE UNJUSTIFIABLE.

We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession.

HERESY IS ONLY ANOTHER WORD FOR FREEDOM OF THOUGHT.

HERESY IS ONLY ANOTHER WORD FOR FREEDOM OF THOUGHT.

I like the scientific spirit – the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them.

Men have become the tools of their tools.

ONE MACHINE CAN DO THE WORK OF 50 ORDINARY MEN. NO MACHINE CAN DO THE WORK OF ONE EXTRAORDINARY MAN.

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.

JUST LIVING IS NOT ENOUGH… ONE MUST HAVE SUNSHINE, FREEDOM, AND A LITTLE FLOWER.

In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stage-coach.