The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

Anger is a prelude to courage.

Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another.

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.

We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.

For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.

In an adequate social order, the untalented should be able to acquire a sense of usefulness and of growth without interfering with the development of talent around them