A business society, therefore, always has in its children a large group of individuals who cannot make money and who do not understand (or want to understand) the profit motive. In short, they are subversives.

American business, while it does not frown on helping the human race, frowns on people who start right in helping the human race without first proving that they can sell things to it.

democracy produces both heroes and villains, but it differs from a fascist state in that it does not produce a hero who is a villain.

A society struggles to fulfill its best instincts, even as an individual does, and generally makes just as hard going of it. The fight against prejudice is an inevitable process. Man has been warring against his own lower nature ever since he found out he had one, and the battle against intolerance is part of the same old struggle between good and evil that has preoccupied us ever since we gave up swinging from trees.

The attitude of the English towards English history reminds one a good deal of the attitude of a Hollywood director towards love.

The feelings, myths and prejudices about the Negro American which now seem so valid and real to some of our white contemporaries will take their place on the shelf along with the belief in witches and the notion that the earth is the center of the solar system.  Nobody knows as yet whether the future [of the race situation] is hopeless. All we know is that it can be made hopeless, if enough people choose to consider it so.

Some persons talk simply because they think sound is more manageable than silence.