No matter how outrageous a lie may be, it will be accepted if stated loudly enough and often enough.

The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.

We have more machinery of government that is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most impressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be saturated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.

The generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

When whole races and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals?

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support—kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists’.

Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.

If you cannot be honest with yourself, there is no hope of being honest with anyone else.

The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.

Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”

The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow eating agony of a lie is never lost.

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.

Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.

History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.