A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state on innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.

We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet it is precisely through our dependence on this reality that we are most endlessly betrayed.

Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel.

It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.

To be born in a free society and not to be born free is to be born into a lie. To be told by co-citizens and co-Christians that you have no value, no history, have never done anything that is worthy of human respect destroys you because in the beginning you believe it.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.