The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome.

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.

An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity--the endless flow of life and death--than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous.

The ratio between supervisory and producing personnel is always highest where the intellectuals are in power. In a Communist country it takes half the population to supervise the other half.

A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul.

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.