Kids esteem themselves when they have accomplished something worth esteeming.

Evolution writ large is the belief that a cloud of hydrogen will spontaneously invent extreme-ultraviolet lithography, perform Swan Lake, and write all the books in the British Museum.

The proper response toward what we occasionally imagine to be democracy, methinks, is to retain one's self-respect by not participating in it.

I may think that hornets do not have an ideal social organization. But I know better than to poke their nest.

In fact, the gravest obstacle to the restoration of civilization in North America is universal suffrage. Letting everybody vote makes no sense. Obviously they are no good at it. The whole idea smacks of the fumble-witted idealism of a high-school Marxist society.

Without men, civilization would last until the oil needed changing.

When someone tells me that 'the Almighty told me to do this', I want to see the transcript.

Those who wash regularly should not stoop to democracy.