A state is absolute in the sense which I have in mind when it claims the right to a monopoly of all the force within the community, to make war, to make peace, to conscript life, to tax, to establish and disestablish property, to define crime, to punish disobedience, to control education, to supervise the family, to regulate personal habits, and to censor opinions. The modern state claims all of these powers, and, in the matter of theory, there is no real difference in the size of the claim between communists, fascists, and Democrats.

Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience.

Creative ideas come to the intuitive person who can face up to the insecurity of looking beyond the obvious.

Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically determined collapses like a pricked balloon.

You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.

The facts we see depend on where we are placed and the habits of our eyes.

No mariner ever enters upon a more uncharted sea than does the average human being born in the 20th century. Our ancestors know their way from birth through eternity; we are puzzled about the day after tomorrow.