However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.

Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.

Our present addiction to pollsters and forecasters is a symptom of our chronic uncertainty about the future... We watch our experts read the entrails of statistical tables and graphs the way the ancients watched their soothsayers read the entrails of a chicken.

Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited.

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

[The designated or chosen leader tries to] articulate and justify the resentment dammed up in the souls of the frustrated. He kindles the vision of a breathtaking future so as to justify the sacrifice of a transitory present. He stages the world of make-believe so indispensable for the realization of self-sacrifice and united action.

There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses.