A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.

Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.

When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.

The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new . . . is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.