The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility - of being unable to undo what one has done - is the faculty of forgiving.

To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious.

What will happen once the authentic mass man takes over, we do not know yet, although it may be a fair guess that he will have more in common with the meticulous, calculated correctness of Himmler than with the hysterical fanaticism of Hitler, will more resemble the stubborn dullness of Molotov than the sensual vindictive cruelty of Stalin.

There is a strange interdependence between thoughtlessness and evil.

Freedom from labor itself is not new; it once belonged among the most firmly established privileges of the few. In this instance, it seems as though scientific progress and technical developments had been only taken advantage of to achieve something about which all former ages dreamed but which none had been able to realize.

According to bourgeois standards, those who are completely unlucky and unsuccessful are automatically barred from competition, which is the life of society. Good fortune is identified with honor, and bad luck with shame.

This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.