One defeats a fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.

[T]he more one is conscious of one's political bias, the more chance one has of acting politically without sacrificing one's aesthetic and intellectual integrity.

To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

There are some things only intellectuals are crazy enough to believe.

It was true that there was no such person as Comrade Oglivy, but a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence... Comrade Oglivy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.

The planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil.

Real power is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges.