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The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty . . . . Not the least of its virtues is that it destroys basic people as certainly as it fortifies and dignifies noble people.
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The only sensible person is my tailor. He measures me anew each time he sees me.
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To withhold deserved praise lest it should make its object conceited is as dishonest as to withhold payment of a just debt lest your creditor should spend the money badly.
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I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
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The devil can quote Shakespeare for his own purpose.
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If pity is akin to love, gratitude is akin to the other thing.
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Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.
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Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
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Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
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You're not a man, you're a machine.
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Ireland, sir, for good or evil, is like no other place under heaven, and no man can touch its sod or breathe its air without becoming better or worse.
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I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.
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Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.
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Plato long ago pointed out the importance of being governed by men with sufficient sense of responsibility and comprehension of public duties to be very reluctant to undertake the work of governing.
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Of all human struggles there is none so treacherous and remorseless as the struggle between the artist man and the mother woman.
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The truth sticks in our throats with all the sauces it is served with: it will never go down until we take it without any sauce at all.
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Liberty is the breath of life to nations.
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When the horrors of anarchy force us to set up laws that forbid us to fight and torture one another for sport, we still snatch at every excuse for declaring individuals outside the protection of law and torturing them to our hearts content.
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General consultant to mankind.
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When a heretic wishes to avoid martyrdom he speaks of 'Orthodoxy, True and False' and demonstrates that the True is his heresy.
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An author who gives a manager or publisher any rights in his work except those immediately and specifically required for its publication or performance is for business purposes an imbecile.
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Any sort of plain speaking is better than the nauseous sham good fellowship our democratic public men get up for shop use.
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Perhaps I had better inform my Protestant readers that the famous Dogma of Papal Infallibility is by far the most modest pretension of the kind in existence. Compared with our infallible democracies, our infallible medical councils, our infallible astronomers, our infallible judges, and our infallible parliaments, the Pope is on his knees in the dust confessing his ignorance before the throne of God, asking only that as to certain historical matters on which he has clearly more sources of information open to him than anyone else his decision shall be taken as final.
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Marriage is to me apostasy, profanation of the sanctuary of my soul, violation of my manhood, sale of my birthright, shameful surrender, ignominious capitulation, acceptance of defeat.