Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.

The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide.