The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we call our common sense, our practical point of view. Actually, these are names for an all-absorbing familiarity with things as they are. . . . Thus it happens that when the times become unhinged, it is the practical people who are caught unaware . . . still clinging to things that no longer exist.

Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.

Radicalism itself ceases to be radical when absorbed mainly in preserving its control over a society or an economy.

Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.

An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.

No one has a right to happiness.

There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.