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.

The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.

A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion.

Nothing so bolsters our self-confidence and reconciles us with ourselves as the continuous ability to create; to see things grow and develop under our hand, day in, day out.

It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.

It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.

The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.