“I know of no book which has been a source ofbrutality and sadistic conduct, both public and private,that can compare with the Bible”
“If books were judged by the bad uses man can put them to, what book has been more misused than the Bible?”
“No great deed, private or public, has ever been undertaken in a bliss of certainty.”
“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. what a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”
“What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared to what we spend on our horses?”
“[I]n a place with absolutely no private or personal life, with the incessant worship of a mediocre career-sadist as the only culture, where all citizens are the permanent property of the state, the highest form of pointlessness has been achieved.”