Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

The atrocities in Cambodia are a direct and understandable response to the violence of the imperial system.

It's very common for the victims to understand a system better than the people who are holding the stick.

Modern science and technology can relieve men of the necessity for specialized, imbecile labor. They may, in principle, provide the basis for a rational social order based on free association and democratic control, if we have the will to create it.

People are interested in authentic long-term, socialist goals, which is not what is usually called socialism. They should be thinking through carefully how the projected society should work, but not in extensive detail because a lot of things just have to be learned by experiment and we don't know enough to plan societies in detail by any means. But, general guidelines could be worked out and many of the specific problems can be discussed. That should just be part of people's popular consciousness. That's how a transition to socialism could take place.

We naturally assume that our mental structures are universal. But I suppose an outside biologist looking at us would see something very different. He would see that, like other organisms, we have a narrow sphere within which we are very good, but that sphere is very limited. And that, in fact, the very achievements we can have within that sphere are related to lack of achievements in other spheres.

...if you ask me whether or not I'm an atheist, I wouldn't even answer. I would first want an explanation of what it is that I'm supposed not to believe in, and I've never seen an explanation.