“The system isn't broken. It's rotten.”
“The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for the truth, not for fame.”
“The battle for evolution seems never-ending. And the battle is part of a wider war, a war between rationality and superstition.”
“Patriarchy has a tenacious or powerful hold through its successful habit of passing itself off as nature.”
“The fact that airplanes sometimes crash doesn't prove the superiority of the river raft. It is only an argument for better-engineered, better-piloted, safer airplanes.”
“Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s, but apples did not suspend themselves in midair pending the outcome; and human beings evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.”
“In short, it is possible to demonstrate that (a) many people support positions or political forces that violate their own professed interests, and (b) many people profess interests that violate their actual well-being.”
“What was taken by force can only be retrieved by force.”
“Let America know and ponder on this: there is something more frightening than Cain killing Abel, and that is Washington killing Spartacus.”
“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.”
“To be really cosmopolitan, a man must be at home even in his own country.”
“Don’t believe the good words of a man uttered in ordinary times; his action in an emergency will tell what sort of man he is.”
“The conservative has little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires.”
“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying “This is mine”, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”
“Do unto others twenty-five percent better than you expect them to do unto you.”
“Setbacks in trying to realize the ideal do not prove that the ideal is at fault.”
“It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.”
“I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.”
“Remember that the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability.”
”Men are of four types:
The firstknows, andknowsthat heknows; that man is a scholar, you must learn from him.
The secondknows, but knows not that heknows; that man is distracted, you must alert him.
The third knows not, andknowsthat he knows not; that man is ignorant, you must educate him.
The fourth knows not, but knows not that he knows not; that man is an idiot, you must beware him.”
“Well, every one for himself, and Providence for us all—as the elephant said when he danced among the chickens.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction, that is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't.”
“A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.”
“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.”