I

• It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
• Away with the State! I will take part in the revolution. Undermine the whole conception of a State, declare free choice and spiritual kinship to be the only all-important condition of any union, and you will have the commencement of a liberty that is worth something.

• It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

• With soap, baptism is a good thing.
• In all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings.
• An honest God id the noblest work of man.
• A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, infamous and hideous--such is the God of the Pentateuch.
• Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the dwelling place of slaves and serfs? Simply for the purpose of raising orthodox Christians? The he did a few miracles to astonish them? That all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist barnacles, petrified Presbyterians, and Methodist mummies?
• Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself.
• (Christmas Wish) "I would have all the nobility drop their titles and give their lands back to the people. I would have the pope throw away his tiara, take off his sacred vestments, and admit that he is not acting for God--is not infallible--but is just an ordinary Italian. I would have all the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and clergymen admit that they know nothing about theology, nothing about hell or heaven, nothing about the destiny of the human race, nothing about devils or ghosts, gods or angels."

• Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too. Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!"

• There is a certain relief in change, even though it ebb from bad to worse; as I have found travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bounced in a new place.
• The Almighty Dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land.
• He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words.

J

• Politics is spending your life planning other people's lives.

• All experience hath shown that mankind are disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, then to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
• No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.
• We should all then, like the Quakers, live without an order of priests, moralize for ourselves, follow the oracle of conscience, and say nothing about what no man can understand, nor therefore believe.
• The earth belongs to the living, not the dead.
• That the earth belongs in usufruct to the living; that the dead have no powers nor right over it. That portion occupied by any individual ceases to be his when he himself ceases to be, and reverts to society.
• No nation is drunken where wine is cheap.
• Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.
• Were it left to me to decide whether we should have government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.
• Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?
• ... the mass of men has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God.
• It is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislator to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish them.
• I believe ... that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
• I have never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
• Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.
• I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.
• Wherever there is, in any country, uncultivated land and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural rights.
• Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
• I hold a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
• When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne; resistance becomes morality.
• We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
• We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.
• It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticism that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one ... But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit of the priests.
• It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
• In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection for his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose.
• You judge truly that I am not afraid of priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying & slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain. I have contemplated their order from Magi of the East to the Saints of the West and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance on whom their interested duperies were to be plaid off.
• The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
• The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
• Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
• The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.
• If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.

• when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men.
• There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.
• Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
• Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
• Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
• Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.
• Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are wolves.
• Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
  But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues.
  And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.
• when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repititions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
  After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which are in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth,as it is in heaven. Give us this day out daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
• So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong; didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?
• He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.
• A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.
• Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
• And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him; and they feared the people: for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them. And they watched him, and sent forth spies, which would feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so they mught deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor. And they asked him, saying Master, we know that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly: Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
  But he perceived their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt ye me? Shew me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar’s. And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s; and unto God the things which be God’s. And they could not take hold of his words before the people: and they marvelled at his answer, and held their peace.--The Gospel According to Luke
• Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

• But we are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

• (Architecture)...the art of how to waste space.

• Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

• When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism!

K

• The meaning of life is that it stops.
• Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

• Roosevelt proved a man could be president for life; Truman proved anybody could be president; Eisenhower proved you don't need to have a president.

• The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor.

• Of course the popular judgment may be in error as to what is really moral; of course priests and others claiming to be the official guardians of morality have committed great outrages in its name; but our very protests against these outrages and errors are proofs of the existence of something just and true, of some standard to which human action ought to conform.

• As an organized political group, the Communists have done nothing to damage our society a fraction as much as what their enemies have done in the name of defending us against subversion.

• In Berlin, JFK said, "I take pride in the words, Ich bin ein Berliner." It meant "I am a doughnut."

• The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world id ruled by little else.

• Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.

• I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

• The politician's promises of yesterday are the taxes of today.

• A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

• Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

• Our forefathers made one mistake. What they should have fought for was representation without taxation.

• People don't mind if you betray humanity, but if you betray your club, you are considered a renegade.

• Mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle.
• Anarchism is the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government--harmony in such a society being obtained not by submission to law or obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely contributed for the sake of protection and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.
• The law is an adroit mixture of customs that are beneficial to society, and could be followed even if no law existed, and others that are of advantage to a ruling minority, but harmful to the masses of men, and can be enforced on them only by terror.

• The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

• The greatest security to be found on earth is in the grave. And the next greatest security is to be found in the penitentiary.

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