The Russians have succeeded in one thing: they have sold the world the idea that they represent socialism and the ideas of Marx,and we have done the greatest service to their propaganda by agreeing that that's what it is.

. . . freedom to creat and construct, to wonder and to venture. Such freedom requires that the individual be active and responsible, not a slave or a well-fed cog in the machine . . . It is not enough that men are not slaves; if social conditions further the existence of automatons, the result will not be love of life, but love of death.

True love is like a pair of socks: you gotta have two and they've gotta match.

I believe that if an individual is not on the path to transcending his society and seeing in what way it furthers or impedes the development of human potential, he cannot enter into intimate contact with his humanity.

Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as love. Love is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self increasing.

Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

There is a creative pleasure, which, for instance, the artisan in the Middle Ages, or in a country like Mexico, still today has - namely the pleasure of creating something. You find quite a few skilled workers who still have that pleasure: maybe in a steel mill; maybe a worker who works with a complicated machine - he has a sense that he is creating something.