We pay for the mistakes of our ancestors, and it seems only fair that they should leave us the money to pay with.

Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue.

Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.

Successful people are the ones who think up things for the rest of the world to keep busy at.

Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

There is nothing so habit-forming as money.

A hypocrite is a person who – but who isn’t?

Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.

One of the most important things to remember about infant care is: don’t change diapers in midstream.

It takes all sorts of people to make the underworld.

The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram.

Some persons are likeable in spite of their unswerving integrity.

Did you ever notice that when a politician does get an idea he usually gets it all wrong.

Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.

Prohibition makes you want to cry into your beer and denies you the beer to cry into.

An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience.

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.

We pay for the mistakes of our ancestors, and it seems only fair that they should leave us the money to pay with.

Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.

The trouble with the public is that there is too much of it; what we need in public is less quantity and more quality.

Fate often puts all the material for happiness and prosperity into a man’s hands just to see how miserable he can make himself with them.

Bores bore each other too; but it never seems to teach them anything.

By the time a bartender knows what drink a man will have before he orders, there is little else about him worth knowing.

Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint.

Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.

There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.

Ours is a world where people don’t know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.

A sequel is an admission that you’ve been reduced to imitating yourself.

In all systems of theology the devil figures as a male person. Yes, it is women who keep the church going.

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?’

If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that’s read by persons who move their lips when they’re reading to themselves.

A demagogue is a person with whom we disagree as to which gang should mismanage the country.

Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes.

I have often noticed that ancestors never boast of the descendants who boast of ancestors. I would rather start a family than finish one. Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

In order to influence a child, one must be careful not to be that child’s parent or grandparent.

I would rather start a family than finish one.

The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race.

An idea isn’t responsible for the people who believe in it.

Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.

Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.