Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.

The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar... Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.

Good is that which makes for unity. Evil is that which makes for separateness.

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.

People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east.

The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the surface .