Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time. H. L.

I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries. H. L.

I don’t preach patience to you, but cynicism; it is the most comforting of philosophies. You will get over your present difficulties only to run into something worse, and so on until the last sad scene. Make up your mind to it—and then make the best of it. That is, do the best you can within the limits of your chance. If you can’t write a book a year, then write one every two years .

If a sense of duty tortures a man, it also enables him to achieve prodigies.

If experience teaches us anything at all, it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

If I ever marry, it will be on a sudden impulse - as a man shoots himself. H. L.

If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States." H. L.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable." H. L.