I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.

When we get to the Place Péreire I jump out. No particular reason for getting off here. No particular reason for anything. I'm free - that's the main thing.

There was nothing I wished to do which I could just as well not do... Everyone around me was a failure, or if not a failure, ridiculous. Especially the successful ones. The successful ones bored me to tears.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

It is a peculiarity of the American mind that it regards any excursion into the truth as an adventure into cynicism.

The instant I reach Heaven, I'm going to speak to God very sharply.

Man, at his best, remains a sort of one-lunged animal, never completely rounded and perfect, as a cockroach, say, is perfect.

So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free association with one who is.

I’m against slavery simply because I dislike slaves.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.