“Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.”
Poetry“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.”
Marriage“Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.”
Poetry“Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.”
Love“Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.”
Imagination“Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.”
Art“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.”
Politics“Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?”
Funny“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.”
Great“The only really happy folk are married women and single men.”
Men“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”
Funny“The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.”
Life“All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.”
Men“Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.”
Good“Adultery is the application of democracy to love.”
Love“A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them.”
Love“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.”
Failure“In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.”
War“Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.”
Work“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.”
Men“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”
Faith“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.”
Fear