• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach.Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.Nature abhors a moron.Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to thepleasant fact that there are only ten of them.Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution.Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worthknowing.Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? Thefirst one is at least disposed of.Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you wouldlie if you were in his place.Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as manyas government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it.It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health andvigor.Jury - A group of 12 people, who, having lied to the judge about their health,hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him....the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom respectable. Novirtuous man--that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense--has ever painted a pictureworth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading...The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble withChristianity is the Christians.The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is asick fly taking a dizzy ride on it.Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of theimprobable.A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity forclear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass; he is actually ill. Worse, heis incurable.In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. Asfor me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.Liberals have many tails and chase them all.Remorse--Regret that one waited so long to do it.
 
...school teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant andstupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers.Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing.Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives weredumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose tooffset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites?We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to theextent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his childrensmart.Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking.A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.A man may be a fool and not know it -- but not if he is married.Truth would quickly cease to become stranger than fiction, once we got as used toit.Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is abore.Creator - A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazycrazier.It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that theaverage citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his owndevices or his own thoughts.A celebrity is one who is known by many people he is glad he doesn't know.A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. Itended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing thepeace.For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.Lawyer: One who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.Judge: A law student who marks his own papers.Misogynist - A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense,common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for publicoffice.
 
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.Tis more blessed to give than to receive; for example, wedding presents.A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to theground.Demagogue: One who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to beidiots.Time is the great legalizer, even in the field of morals.Immorality: The morality of those who are having a better time.Jealousy: The theory that some other fellow has just as little taste.Self-respect: The secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.Sunday: A day given over by Americans to wishing that they themselves were deadand in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.Sunday School: A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience oftheir parents.The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if thatwere true then it would degrade the state to send men to war... The state, intruth, is degraded in its very nature: a few butcheries cannot do it any furtherdamage.The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably nottrue. It is the chief occupation of mankind.A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to getanywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so manyhumiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity hasmade them good.Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.Firmness in decision is often merely a form of stupidity. It indicates aninability to think the same thing out twice.Truth - Something somehow discreditable to someone.Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all otherphilosophers are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he alsousually proves that he is one himself.Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself intoHell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, oranother War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her firsthusband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging onas long as possible.
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...