“Their very imagination was dead. When you can say that of a man he has struck bottom... there is no lower deep for him.”

“There's one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he's crooked.”

“The fact is, the king was a good deal more than a king, he was a man; and when a man is a man, you can't knock it out of him.”

“Man has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his delights...sexual intercourse!...His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values.”

“There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can.”

“Each man's preference is the only standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command him.”

“Man is a marvelous curiosity … he thinks he is the Creator’s pet … he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea?”