Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.

We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.

To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.

Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.

The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth

Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.

There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.