Man was nature’s mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor.
We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true; they ruin our dreams.
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.
One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action – the ability to pass directly from thought to action.
Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one’s balance and keep afloat.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
He who has nothing and wants something is less frustrated than he who has something and wants more.
Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults.
Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.
To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.
It is startling to see how the oppressed almost invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors.
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse.
To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.