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

Because I was raised in a Christian culture I never considered myself to be a totally free human being.

When human rights are abused on a grand scale, the broth of purity boils and feeds the rebellion of a new order.

The establishment of democracy on the American continent was scarcely as radical a break with the past as was the necessity, which Americans faced, of broadening this concept to include black men.

True rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers,and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one's life

There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed ... But the conquest of the physical world is not man’s only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through vast forests, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced.