"The weaknesses of the many make the leader possible—and the man who craves disciples and wants followers is always more or less of a charlatan. The man of genuine worth and insight wants to be himself; and he wants others to be themselves, also. Discipleship is a degenerating process to all parties concerned. People who are able to do their own thinking should not allow others to do it for them."

"Literature is the noblest of all the arts. Music dies on the air, or at best exists only as a memory; oratory ceases with the effort; the painter's colors fade and the canvas rots; the marble is dragged from its pedestal and is broken into fragments."

"Academic education is the act of memorizing things read in books, and things told by college professors who got their education mostly by memorizing things read in books."

"When you see a tomcat with his whiskers full of feathers, do not say "Canary!" — he'll take offense."

"Men who marry for gratification, propagation or the matter of buttons or socks, must expect to cope with and deal in a certain amount of quibble, subterfuge, concealments, and double, deep-dyed prevarication."

"Do not dump your woes upon people — keep the sad story of your life to yourself. Troubles grow by recounting them."

"I am not sure just what the unpardonable sin is, but I believe it is a disposition to evade the payment of small bills."

"The newspapers print what the people want, and thus does the savage still swing his club and flourish his spear."

"Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you."

"Do not go out of your way to do good whenever it comes your way. Men who make a business of doing good to others are apt to hate others in the same occupation. Simply be filled with the thought of good, and it will radiate — you do not have to bother about it, any more than you need trouble about your digestion."

"To supply a thought is mental massage; but to evolve a thought of your own is an achievement. Thinking is a brain exercise — and no faculty grows save as it is exercised."

"The great Big Black Things that have loomed against the horizon of my life, threatening to devour me, simply loomed and nothing more. The things that have really made me miss my train have always been sweet, soft, pretty, pleasant things of which I was not in the least afraid."

"I have no perfect panacea for human ills. And even if I had I would not attempt to present a system of philosophy between the soup and fish, but this much I will say: The distinctively modern custom of marital bundling is the doom of chivalry and death of passion. It wears all tender sentiment to a napless warp, and no wonder is it that the novelist, without he has a seared and bitter heart, hesitates to follow the couple beyond the church door. There is no greater reproach to our civilization than the sight of men joking the boy whose heart is pierced by the first rays of a life-giving sun, or of our expecting a girl to blush because she is twice God's child today she was yesterday."

"Young women with ambitions should be very crafty and cautious, lest mayhap they be caught in the soft, silken mesh of a happy marriage, and go down to oblivion, dead to the world."

"It is only life and love that give love and life."

"If you err it is not for me to punish you. We are punished by our sins not for them."

"Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes a day. Wisdom consists of not exceeding the limit."

"If your religion does not change you, then you had better change your religion."

"An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all."

"A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience."

"Wealth: A cunning device of Fate whereby men are made captive, and burdened with responsibilites from which only Death can file their fetters."

"Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes."

"There have always existed three ways of keeping the people loving and loyal. One is to leave them alone, to trust them and not to interfere. This plan, however, has very seldom been practised, because the politicians regard the public as a cow to be milked, and something must be done to make it stand quiet. So they try Plan Number Two, which consists in hypnotizing the public by means of shows, festivals, parades, prizes and many paid speeches, sermons and editorials, wherein and whereby the public is told how much is being done for it, and how fortunate it is in being protected and wisely cared for by its divinely appointed guardians. Then the band strikes up, the flags are waved, three passes are made, one to the right and two to the left; and we, being completely under the hypnosis, hurrah ourselves hoarse. Plan Number Three is a very ancient one and is always held back to be used in case Number Two fails. It is for the benefit of the people who do not pass readily under hypnotic control. If there are too many of these, they have been known to pluck up courage and answer back to the speeches, sermons and editorials. Sometimes they refuse to hurrah when the bass-drum plays, in which case they have occasionally been arrested for contumacy and contravention by stocky men, in wide-awake hats, who lead the strenuous life. This Plan Number Three provides for an armed force that shall overawe, if necessary, all who are not hypnotized. The army is used for two purposes — to coerce disturbers at home, and to get up a war at a distance, and thus distract attention from the troubles near at hand. Napoleon used to say that the only sure cure for internal dissension was a foreign war: this would draw the disturbers away, on the plea of patriotism, so they would win enough outside loot to satisfy them, or else they would all get killed, it really didn't matter much; and as for loot, if it was taken from foreigners, there was no sin. A careful analyst might here say that Plan Number Three is only a variation of Plan Number Two — the end being gained by hypnotic effects in either event, for the army is conscripted from the people to use against the people, just as you turn steam from a boiler into the fire-box to increase the draft. ..."

"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man."

"Do not take life too seriously – you will never get out of it alive."

"It is the weak man who urges compromise—never the strong man."

"Life is a compromise between fate and free will."

"A Miracle: An event described by those to whom it was told by men who did not see it."

"I believe more in the goodness of bad people than i do in the badness of good people."

"Knowledge is the distilled essence of our intuitions, corroborated by experience."

""Should we have an Eleventh Commandment?" asked a youth of the Greatest Living Actress. "Most assuredly, no - we have ten too many now!" answered the divine Sara."

"Every spirit makes his own house, but as afterwards the house confines its spirit, you had better build well."

"If we ever damned it will not be because we have loved too much, but because we have loved too little."

"Good people are only half as good, and bad people only half as bad, as other people regard them."

"And the worst part about making a soldier of a man is not that a soldier kills brown men or white men, but that the soldier loses his own soul."

"Too often the reformer has been one who caused the rich to band themselves against the poor."

"If men could only know each other, they would never either idolize or hate."

"Literary people of the opposite sex do not really love each other. All they really desire is to read their manuscript aloud to a receptive listener."

"The sad thing about the optimist is his state of mind concerning himself."

"The happiest mortals on earth are ladies who have been bereaved by the loss of their husbands."

"It takes brains to make money, but any dam fool can inherit. P.S.: I never inherited any money."