While we teach knowledge, we are losing that teaching which is the most important one for human development: the teaching which can only be given by the simple presence of a mature, loving person.

I would consider a socialism a mixture of the minimum of centralization necessary for a modern industrial state, and a maximum of decentralization.

To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.

The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.

Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and triviality; they cripple man, and all factors that make man into a psychic cripple turn him also into a sadist or a destroyer.

If one admits that the influence of the outside world is essentially beneficial, the lack of such influence during sleep would tend to diminish the value of our dream activity so as to render it inferior to the mental activity that takes place when we are awake, when we are exposed to these beneficial influences of surrounding reality. But how can one say that the influence of reality is exclusively beneficial. Could it not also be damaging, and could its absence not give access to qualities superior to those that we have when awake?

The average American has separated his private life from his existence as a member of his society, and leaves that to the specialists in the government to take care of.