in race relations, the single gesture and the single individual are more often than not doomed to failure. Only the group and the long-term, undeviating policy make much headway. ... if you want to make the world a better place, the first thing you must accept is the fact that you cannot transcend your limitations as an individual.

Living in England, provincial England, must be like being married to a stupid but exquisitely beautiful wife.

There are ... other business societies - England, Holland, Belgium and France, for instance. But ours [the United States] is the only culture now extant in which business so completely dominates the national scene that sports, crime, sex, death, philanthropy and Easter Sunday are money-making propositions.

The real nature of an ethic is that it does not become an ethic unless and until it goes into action.

Success does not implant bad characteristics in people. It merely steps up the growth rate of the bad characteristics they already had.

Reality is above all else a variable, and nobody is qualified to say that he or she knows exactly what it is. As a matter of fact, with a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before.

the crucial disadvantage of aggression, competitiveness and skepticism as national characteristics is that these qualities cannot be turned off at five o'clock.