Don't bother to examine a folly-ask yourself only what it accomplishes.

But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.

The attack on "selfishness" is an attack on man's self-esteem; to surrender one, is to surrender the other.

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.

Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.

The mark of an honest man... is that he means what he says and knows what he means.

We the Living is not a novel 'about Soviet Russia.' It is a novel about Man against the State. Its basic theme is the sanctity of human life - using the word 'sanctity' not in a mystical sense, but in the sense of 'supreme value.'