A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry.
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
He who confuses political liberty with freedom and political equality with similarity has never thought for five minutes about either.
I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
I tell you I have been misquoted everywhere, and the inaccuracies are chasing me round the world.
In a stupid nation the man of genius becomes a god: everybody worships him and nobody does his will.
In truth, mankind cannot be saved from without, by schoolmasters or any other sort of masters: it can only be lamed and enslaved by them.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
The way to deal with worldly people is to frighten them by repeating their scandalous whisperings aloud.
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
[The] power of accurate observation...is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.