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.

Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success

Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.

Imitation is often a shortcut to a solution. We copy when we lack the inclination, the ability or the time to work out an independent solution. People in a hurry will imitate more readily than people at leisure. Hustling thus tends to produce uniformity. And in the deliberate fusing of individuals into a compact group, incessant action will play a considerable role.

A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.

Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.

It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.