On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.

Bachelor

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

Books and Reading

There are people who read too much: bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.

Choice

Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.

Cynics and Cynicism

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

Democracy

The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.

God

God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos: He will set them above their betters.

Heroes and Heroism

In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one.

Humankind

Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.

Hygiene

Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienist who does not debase his theory of the healthful with a theory of the virtuous. The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices.

Incredulity

The curse of man, and the cause of nearly all his woe, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.

Laughter

One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.

Leisure

The idea that leisure is of value in itself is only conditionally true. The average man simply spends his leisure as a dog spends it. His recreations are all puerile, and the time supposed to benefit him really only stupefies him.

Life and Living

Life is a dead-end street.

Love

To be in love is merely to be in a perpetual state of anesthesia.

Men and Women

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later, for another thing, they die earlier.

Metaphysics

A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean by twice, what by two, what by makes, and what by four. For asking such questions metaphysicians are supported in oriental luxury in the universities, and respected as educated and intelligent men.

Morality

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

Philosophers and Philosophy

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.

Privilege

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

Safety

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

Speakers and Speaking

Before a man speaks, it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks it is seldom necessary to assume.

Temptation

Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.

Truth

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

Wisdom

No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.