We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.

The most troublesome problem which confronts social engineering is how to provide for the untalented and, what is equally important, how to provide against them.

To believe that if we could have but this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness.

The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.

There is a radicalism in all getting, and a conservatism in all keeping. Lovemaking is radical, while marriage is conservative.

The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.