We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.

It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.

It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.

A plant needs roots in order to grow. With man it is the other way around: only when he grows does he have roots and feels at home in the world.

The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.

Woe to him inside a non-conformist clique who does not conform to non-conformity.