Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism... Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.

Corruption of politics has nothing to do with the morals, or the laxity of morals, of various political personalities. Its cause is altogether a material one.

wealth means power: the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade.

The pathos of it all is that the America which is to be protected by a huge military force is not the America of the people, but that of the privileged class.

What is generally regarded as success - acquisition of wealth, the capture of power or social prestige - I consider the most dismal failures. I hold when it is said of a man that he has arrived, it means that he is finished - his development has stopped at that point.

The reward in heaven is the perpetual bait, a bait that has caught man in an iron net, a strait-jacket which does not let him expand or grow.