Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market.

There is no word in our language which has been so much misused and prostituted as the word love. It has been preached by those who were ready to condone every cruelty if it served their purpose; it has been used as a disguise under which to force people into sacrificing their own happiness, into submitting their whole self to those who profited from this surrender. [...] It has been made so empty that for many people love may mean no more than that two people have lived together for twenty years just without fighting more often than once a week.

Man can be conditioned to behave in almost every desired way; but only "almost.

Authority is not a quality one person 'has,' in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him.

I think the Russians might do away with the terror in twenty or thirty or years, when they are richer, and when they don't need these repressive methods so much.

Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit when it is blended with the most precious quality man is endowed with - the love of life

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.