“It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.”

“Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure.”

“The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.”

“No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.”

“Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.”

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

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