One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.

Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.

What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.

There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.

God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness.

Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people's happiness.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history.

De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.

The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.