The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.

Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance.

Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.

Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts.

The purpose of philosophers is to show people what is right under their noses.

It is startling to see how the oppressed almost invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors.

The education explosion is producing a vast number of people who want to live significant, important lives but lack the ability to satisfy this craving for importance by individual achievement. The country is being swamped with nobodies who want to be somebodies.