Common man has at long last got himself so far out of gear with nature and his environment that he is beginning to see the shape of extinction, whether he recognizes it as such or not.

Our history is every human history; a black and gory business, with more scoundrels than wise men at the lead, and more louts than both put together to cheer and follow.

A thought that had been in the archives of his mind for many months came sharply into relief: of all human beings alive, the scientists were the only ones who retained imagination, ideals, and a sincere interest in the larger world. It was to them he should give his allegiance, not to the statesmen, not to industry or commerce or war.

One good teacher in a lifetime may sometimes change a delinquent into a solid citizen.

Not to understand the doer is to have no certain knowledge of what has been done, or why it was undertaken.

The businessmen have corrupted liberty by trying to propose it as a material quality.

God must hate common people, because he made them so common.

They are afraid. They would, today, keep secret a thousand things that, yesterday, they would have told one another freely. Freedom. Where is it now? We are driving it into limbo--their kind. To limbo.

The novelist now usurps the chair of the educator, the pulpit of the preacher, the columns of the journalist. Yet his original purpose of entertaining may have been his highest purpose. (introduction to Gladiator, Book League Monthly, 1930).

I don't like people -- much. This kind, I mean. And they don't like me at all, as a rule. Maybe the latter explains the former.

Ignorance is not bliss -- it is oblivion.

If liberty has any meaning it means freedom to improve.

The mealy look of men today is the result of momism and so is the pinched and baffled fury in the eyes of womankind.

There is no advance without strife.

Superiority and inferiority are individual, not racial or national.