Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul.

Totalitarianism spells simplification: an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power.

The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.

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

Action can give us the feeling of being useful, but only words can give us a sense of weight and purpose.

No totalitarian censor can approach the implacability of the censor who controls the line of communication between the outer world and our consciousness. Nothing is allowed to reach us which might weaken our confidence and lower our morale. To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth.

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.