They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.

Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story - a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.

A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.

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.

The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow - by the tilt of the social landscape.

There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.

The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.