The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life.

To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as he really is. It is by eliminating man from their equation that the makers of history can predict the future, and the writers of history can give a pattern to the past.

What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine: it must be "contrary to nature, to common sense and to pleasure.

Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.

The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious.

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.