Morality turns on whether the pleasure precedes the pain or follows it ... Thus, it is immoral to get drunk because the headache comes after the drinking, but if the headache came first, and the drunkenness afterwards, it would be moral to get drunk.

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities as well as those of other people will keep a man from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those that are worth committing.

Truth does not consist in never lying but in knowing when to lie and when not to do so.

The course of true anything never does run smooth.

The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is.

The dearer a thing is, the cheaper as a general rule we sell it.

To do great work, a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

The gods are those who either have money or do not want it.