The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?

When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions - racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war - which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action.

The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.

Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work.

After 40, a man is responsible for his face.