There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.

[The designated or chosen leader tries to] articulate and justify the resentment dammed up in the souls of the frustrated. He kindles the vision of a breathtaking future so as to justify the sacrifice of a transitory present. He stages the world of make-believe so indispensable for the realization of self-sacrifice and united action.

Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.

Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

Nothing so offends the doctrinaire intellectual as our ability to achieve the momentous in a matter-of-fact way, unblessed by words.

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.