Spirit has fifty times the strength and staying-power of brawn and muscle

Next to possessing genius one's self is the power of appreciating it in others

Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat.
- Notebook, 1894

The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of graceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.

Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.

Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals.