Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.

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

The superficiality of many is a result of deep fears. It takes spare time to think things out; it takes free time to mature. People in a hurry may not think well or mature well. The next best is a state of perpetual puerility.

It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.

There is nothing more explosive than a skilled population condemned to inaction. Such a population is likely to become a hotbed of extremism and intolerance, and be receptive to any proselytizing ideology, however absurd and vicious, which promises vast action.

For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.