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Top quotes by Eric Hoffer
Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something. Votes: 27
There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other. Votes: 24
Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation. Votes: 20
The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves. Votes: 19
Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from. Votes: 19
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. Votes: 17
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future. Votes: 15
We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true; they ruin our dreams. Votes: 15
It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men. Votes: 15
The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity. Votes: 12
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance. Votes: 12
Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership. Votes: 11
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true. Votes: 11
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them. Votes: 11
An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head. Votes: 11
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn. Votes: 11
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness. Votes: 9
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house. Votes: 9
It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words. Votes: 9
The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully. Votes: 9
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains. Votes: 9
A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time. Votes: 9
It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind. Votes: 8
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression. Votes: 7
The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself. Votes: 6
One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action. Votes: 6
We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution. Votes: 6
With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves. Votes: 4
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak. Votes: 3
Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives. Votes: 1
A man by himself is in bad company. Votes: 0
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings. Votes: 0
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Votes: 0
Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice. Votes: 0
We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind. Votes: 0
It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living. Votes: 0
It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt. Votes: 0
Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners. Votes: 0
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart. Votes: 0
The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything. Votes: 0
In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. Votes: 0
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents. Votes: 0
It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents. Votes: 0
The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle. Votes: 0
There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his. Votes: 0
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Votes: 0
Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem. Votes: 0
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person. Votes: 0
The greatest weariness comes from work not done. Votes: 0
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities. Votes: 0
The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax. Votes: 0
The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. Votes: 0
It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia." Votes: 0
You cannot gauge the intelligence of an American by talking with him; you must work with him. The American polishes and refines his way of doing things-even the most commonplace-the way the French of the 17th century polished their maxims. Votes: 0
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power. Votes: 0
Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity. Votes: 0
The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. In an affluent society, the alienated who clamor for power are largely untalented people who cannot make use of the unprecedented opportunities for self-realization, and cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self. Votes: 0
A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual. Votes: 0
The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves. Votes: 0
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny. Votes: 0
Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay. Votes: 0
Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play. Votes: 0
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are. Votes: 0
Intolerance is the ''Do Not Touch'' sign on something that cannot bear touching. We do not mind having our hair ruffled, but we will not tolerate any familiarity with the toupee which covers our baldness. Votes: 0
We are made kind by being kind. Votes: 0
We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common. Votes: 0
America is still the best country for the common man -- white or black ... if he can't make it here he won't make it anywhere else. Votes: 0
Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us. Votes: 0
No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government. Votes: 0
It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate. Votes: 0
Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole the church, party, nation and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society . Votes: 0
The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life. Votes: 0
The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth Votes: 0
To change everything, simply change your attitude. Votes: 0
There is in even the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that what we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-renunciation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser and their like are not far behind the selfless in the exercise of self-sacrifice. Votes: 0
There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet. Votes: 0
It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it. Votes: 0
The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together. Votes: 0
We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence. Votes: 0
Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity. Votes: 0
The birth of the new constitutes a crisis, and its mastery calls for a crude and simple cast of mind -- the mind of a fighter -- in which the virtues of tribal cohesion and fierceness and infantile credulity and malleability are paramount. Thus every new beginning recapitulates in some degree man's first beginning. Votes: 0
We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious. Votes: 0
It is part of the formidableness of a genuine mass movement that the self-sacrifice it promotes includes also a sacrifice of some of the moral sense, which cramps and restrains our nature. Votes: 0
Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself. Votes: 0
The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas. Votes: 0
It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities and talents. Votes: 0
One is not quite certain that creativeness in the arts, literature, and science functions best in an environment of absolute freedom. Chances are that a relatively mild tyranny stimulates creativeness. Votes: 0
Actual creativeness is a matter of moments. One has to piece together the minute grains to make a lump. And it is so easy to miss the momentary flashes, it is like sluicing in placer mining. He who lets the flakes float by has nothing to show for his trouble. Votes: 0
The impulse to think, to philosophize and spin beauty and brilliance out of mind and soul, is somehow the offspring of resistance of an effort to overcome an apparently insurmountable obstacle. Hence cultural creativeness is more likely to flourish in an atmosphere of restriction, of an imposed pattern of thought and behavior, than in one of total freedom. Votes: 0
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. Votes: 0
In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling. Votes: 0
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves. Votes: 0
There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutionsto cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power. Votes: 0
People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a "have" type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a "have not" type of self. Votes: 0
The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves. Votes: 0
Creativity is discontent translated into arts. Votes: 0
Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. Votes: 0
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. Votes: 0
Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature. Votes: 0
The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches. Votes: 0
Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not originate. To discover something wholly new can be a matter of chance, of idle tinkering, or even of the chronic dissatisfaction of the untalented. Votes: 0
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing. Votes: 0
In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. Votes: 0
We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs subordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling. Votes: 0
A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come. Votes: 0
Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults. Votes: 0
Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there. Votes: 0
It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites-opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity-where energies flow smoothly in one direction-there will be much doing but no music. Votes: 0
Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting. Votes: 0
Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life. Votes: 0
Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise. Votes: 0
Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family-what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated? Votes: 0
...the differences between the conservative and the radical seem to spring mainly from their attitude toward the future. Fear of the future causes us to lean against and cling to the present, while faith in the future renders us receptive to change. Votes: 0
We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it. Votes: 0
Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do. Votes: 0
Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat. Votes: 0
Action is basically a reaction against loss of balance - a flailing of the arms to to regain one's balance. To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium. Votes: 0
When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion. Votes: 0
Even in slight things the experience of the new is rarely without some stirring of foreboding. Votes: 0
It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable. Votes: 0
When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse . Votes: 0
We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire. Votes: 0
There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive. Votes: 0
The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else--we are the busiest people in the world. Votes: 0
The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own. Votes: 0
A low capacity for getting along with those near us often goes hand in hand with a high receptivity to the idea of the brotherhood of men. Votes: 0
Laughter to begin with was probably glee at the misfortunes of others. The baring of the teeth in laughter hints at its savage ancestry. Animals have no malice, hence also no laughter. They never savor the sudden glory of Schadenfreude. It was its infectious quality that made of laughter a medium of mutuality. Votes: 0
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Votes: 0
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible. Votes: 0
Our present addiction to pollsters and forecasters is a symptom of our chronic uncertainty about the future... We watch our experts read the entrails of statistical tables and graphs the way the ancients watched their soothsayers read the entrails of a chicken. Votes: 0
I could never figure out or probably did not take the trouble to figure out what the great philosophical problems are about. The momentous statements I come across are at best a storm in a teacup. There are quite a number of people who have a vested interest in the stuff, make a noble living out of it, and they conspire with one another to keep it alive. Votes: 0
A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed. Votes: 0
People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both. Votes: 0
Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity. Votes: 0
Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions. Votes: 0
The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt. Votes: 0
Fair play with others is primarily the practice of not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us. We tend to rub our guilty conscience against others the way we wipe dirty fingers on a rag. This is as evil a misuse of others as the practice of exploitation. Votes: 0
Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth. Votes: 0
It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay. Votes: 0
A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor. Votes: 0
In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes- courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on - can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion, even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless. Votes: 0
The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breeds pride and arrogance. Votes: 0
The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome. Votes: 0
The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self and begin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding a new identity or by blurring and camouflaging their individual distinctness; and both these ends are reached by imitation. Votes: 0
The education explosion is producing a vast number of people who want to live significant, important lives but lack the ability to satisfy this craving for importance by individual achievement. The country is being swamped with nobodies who want to be somebodies. Votes: 0
What merit there is in my thinking is derived from two peculiarities: (1) My inability to be familiar with anything. I simply can't take things for granted. (2) My endless patience. I assume that the only way to find an answer is to hang on long enough and keep groping. Votes: 0
We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the remarkable fact that many inventions had their birth as toys. Votes: 0
It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence. Votes: 0
They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor. Votes: 0
We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are never of one kind, that we never love without reservations and never hate with all our being cannot prevent us from seeing others as wholly black or white. Votes: 0
One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does. Votes: 0
There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper. Votes: 0
Children are the keys of paradise. Votes: 0
It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. Votes: 0
There is a close connection between lack of confidence and the passionate state of mind. Votes: 0
The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of turns, achievements, disappointments, surprises, and crises is a life full of landmarks. The empty life has even its few details blurred, and cannot be remembered with certainty. Votes: 0
Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. He is both an unfinished animal and an unfinished man. It is this incurable unfinishedness which sets man apart from other living things. For, in the attempt to finish himself, man becomes a creator. Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing. Votes: 0
There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished...Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing. Votes: 0
No totalitarian censor can approach the implacability of the censor who controls the line of communication between the outer world and our consciousness. Nothing is allowed to reach us which might weaken our confidence and lower our morale. To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Votes: 0
You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy. Votes: 0
Modern man is weighed down more by the burden of responsibility than by the burden of sin . We think him more a savior who shoulders our responsibilities than him who shoulders our sins. If instead of making decisions we have but to obey and do our duty, we feel it as a sort of salvation. Votes: 0
There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size. Votes: 0
The pre-human creature from which man evolved was unlike any other living thing in its malicious viciousness toward its own kind. Humanization was not a leap forward but a groping toward survival. Votes: 0
Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals; yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies. Votes: 0
We know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude; and men are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and beget action; they kill and revive, corrupt and cure. The "men-of-words"- priests, prophets, intellectuals- have played a more decisive role in history than military leaders, statesmen, and businessmen. Votes: 0
Sensuality reconciles us with the human race. The misanthropy of the old is due in large part to the fading of the magic glow of desire. Votes: 0
The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody. Votes: 0
One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men. Votes: 0
When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it. Votes: 0
Unpredictability, too, can become monotonous. Votes: 0
What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds. Votes: 0
Without a sense of proportion there can be neither good taste nor genuine intelligence, nor perhaps moral integrity. Votes: 0
Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect. Votes: 0
Whoever originated the cliche that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the nature of evil and very little about human beings. Votes: 0
Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake. Votes: 0
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. Votes: 0
To overestimate the originality of one's thoughts is perhaps a less serious defect than being unaware of their newness. There is a more pronounced lack of sensitivity in underestimating (ourselves and others) than in overestimating. Votes: 0
Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death. Votes: 0
Woe to him inside a non-conformist clique who does not conform to non-conformity. Votes: 0
You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone Votes: 0
To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question. Votes: 0
Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled. Votes: 0
Some people have no original ideas because they do not think well enough of themselves to consider their ideas worth noticing and developing. Votes: 0
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business. Votes: 0
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding, Votes: 0
What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine: it must be "contrary to nature, to common sense and to pleasure. Votes: 0
It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia. Votes: 0
A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self. Votes: 0
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless. Votes: 0
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Votes: 0
A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past. Votes: 0
There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect. Votes: 0
The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse. Votes: 0
Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. Votes: 0
There is nothing more explosive than a skilled population condemned to inaction. Such a population is likely to become a hotbed of extremism and intolerance, and be receptive to any proselytizing ideology, however absurd and vicious, which promises vast action. Votes: 0
For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life. Votes: 0
The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets. Votes: 0
The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility Votes: 0
Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket. Votes: 0
Radicalism itself ceases to be radical when absorbed mainly in preserving its control over a society or an economy. Votes: 0
There is a radicalism in all getting, and a conservatism in all keeping. Lovemaking is radical, while marriage is conservative. Votes: 0
It is a paradox that in our time of drastic rapid change, when the future is in our midst devouring the present before our eyes, we have never been less certain about what is ahead of us. Votes: 0
No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are. Votes: 0
No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. Votes: 0
What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else? Votes: 0
Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others. Votes: 0
The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person. Votes: 0
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength. Votes: 0
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing Votes: 0
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause Votes: 0
It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents Votes: 0
If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life. Votes: 0
Anger is the prelude to courage. Votes: 0
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny. Votes: 0
Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible. Votes: 0
If free enterprise becomes a proselytizing holy cause, it will be a sign that its workability and advantages have ceased to be self-evident. Votes: 0
We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves. Votes: 0
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not. Votes: 0
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause. Votes: 0
Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident. Votes: 0
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind. Votes: 0
How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization! Votes: 0
There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless. Votes: 0
People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. Votes: 0
Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence. Votes: 0
Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create something in the image of nature is to create a machine, and it was by learning the inner working of nature that man became a builder of machines. Votes: 0
Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us. Votes: 0
Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense, and sublime truths are equally potent in readying people for self-sacrifice if they are accepted as the sole, eternal truth Votes: 0
A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion. Votes: 0
It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the by-product of a stalemate between opposite vices. Votes: 0
Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story - a story that is basically without meaning or pattern. Votes: 0
The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche. Votes: 0
How terribly hard and almost impossible it is to tell the truth. More than anything else, the artist in us prevents us from telling aught as it really happened. We deal with the truth as the cook deals with meat and vegetables. Votes: 0
It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music. Votes: 0
There is perhaps no better way of measuring the natural endowment of a soul than by its ability to transmute dissatisfaction into a creative impulse. Votes: 0
Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow. Votes: 0
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Votes: 0
The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flowby the tilt of the social landscape. Votes: 0
Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good. Votes: 0
We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails. Votes: 0
It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. Votes: 0
All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ. Votes: 0
Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard. Votes: 0
Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves. Votes: 0
Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear. Thus a feeling of utter unworthiness can be a source of courage. Votes: 0
The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than a deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without. Votes: 0
How rare it is to come across a piece of writing that is unambiguous, unqualified, and also unblurred by understatements or subtleties, and yet at the same time urbane and tolerant. It is a vice of the scientific method when applied to human affairs that it fosters hemming and hawing and a scrupulousness that easily degenerates into obscurity and meaninglessness. Votes: 0
In an adequate social order, the untalented should be able to acquire a sense of usefulness and of growth without interfering with the development of talent around them Votes: 0
The most troublesome problem which confronts social engineering is how to provide for the untalented and, what is equally important, how to provide against them. Votes: 0
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about. Votes: 0
Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor. Votes: 0
Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent. Votes: 0
It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat; that they are chosen when they are shunned. Votes: 0
It seems that when we are oppressed by the knowledge of our worthlessness we do not see ourselves as lower than some and higher than others, but as lower than the lowest of mankind. We hate then the whole world, and we would pour our wrath upon the whole of creation. Votes: 0
Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are. Votes: 0
We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends. Votes: 0
The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop. Votes: 0
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves. Votes: 0
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith. Votes: 0
Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves. Votes: 0
Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love. Votes: 0
A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life Votes: 0
I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac. Votes: 0
The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance. Votes: 0
To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little. If you have too little confidence, you will think you can't learn. If you have too much, you will think you don't have to learn. Votes: 0
The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor. Votes: 0
A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority. Votes: 0
That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor the flashes we are without growth and exhilaration. Votes: 0
The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me. Votes: 0
Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves. Votes: 0
We see through others only when we see through ourselves. Votes: 0
The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. Votes: 0
To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief from the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility. Votes: 0
A soul that is reluctant to share does not as a rule have much of its own. Miserliness is here a symptom of meagerness. Votes: 0
What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation. Votes: 0
We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves. Votes: 0
The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity. Votes: 0
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know. Votes: 0
We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for. Votes: 0
Anger is a prelude to courage. Votes: 0
Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us. Votes: 0
Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life. Votes: 0
To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible. Votes: 0
No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart. Votes: 0
It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others. Votes: 0
To the old, the new is usually bad news. Votes: 0
Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would impose on man the passivity and predictability of matter. By this test, absolute power is the manifestation most inimical to human uniqueness. Absolute power wants to turn people into malleable clay. Votes: 0
There can be no freedom without freedom to fail. Votes: 0
We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression. Votes: 0
Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority. Votes: 0
We cannot hate those who we despise. Votes: 0
The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate. Votes: 0
It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem. Votes: 0
The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction. Votes: 0
We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us as rivals and trespassers. But we always look for allies when we hate. Votes: 0
How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty. Votes: 0
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves. Votes: 0
The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way. Votes: 0
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. Votes: 0
Friendship Never explain -- your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe it anyway. A real friend never gets in your way, unless you happen to be on the way down. A friend is someone you can do nothing with and enjoy it. However much we guard ourselves against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us. It is not so much the example of others we imitate, as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words. Votes: 0
When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths. Votes: 0
Language was invented to ask questions. Votes: 0
A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will. Votes: 0
The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it. Votes: 0
We usually see only the things we are looking for- so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not. Votes: 0
When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest people in the world. Votes: 0
There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself. Votes: 0
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. Votes: 0
To believe that if only we had this or that we would be happy, or to pursue any excessive desire, diverts us from seeing that happiness depends on an adequate self. Votes: 0
We can be satisfied with moderate confidence in ourselves and with a moderately good opinion of ourselves, but the faith we have in a holy cause has to be extravagant and uncompromising. Votes: 0
Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be. Votes: 0
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.This minding of other people's business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat. Votes: 0
It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression. Votes: 0
To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats- we know it not. Votes: 0
Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas . Votes: 0
A compilation of what outstanding people said or wrote at the age of 20 would make a collection of asinine pronouncements. Votes: 0
A man's worth is what he is divided by what he thinks he is. Votes: 0
The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America. Votes: 0
Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance. Votes: 0
Ours is a golden age of minorities. At no time in the past have dissident minorities felt so much at home and had so much room to throw their weight around. They speak and act as if they were "the people," and what they abominate most is the dissent of the majority. Votes: 0
Nothing comes easily. My work smells of sweat. Votes: 0
Good writing , like gold , combines lustrous lucidity with high density. What this means is good writing is packed with hints. Votes: 0
I always held my flower in a clenched fist. Votes: 0
If anybody asks me what I have accomplished, I will say all I have accomplished is that I have written a few good sentences. Votes: 0
Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs. Votes: 0
To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. Votes: 0
Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.... We join a mass movement to escape from individual responsibility, or, in the words of an ardent young Nazi, to be free from freedom. It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility? Votes: 0
There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Votes: 0
Those of little faith are of little hatred. Votes: 0
It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice. Votes: 0
The superficiality of many is a result of deep fears. It takes spare time to think things out; it takes free time to mature. People in a hurry may not think well or mature well. The next best is a state of perpetual puerility. Votes: 0
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know. One often obtains a clue to a person's nature by discovering the reasons for his or her imperviousness to certain impressions. Votes: 0
The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto. Votes: 0
It needs some intelligence to be truly selfish. The unintelligent can only be self-righteous. Votes: 0
The weak are not a noble breed. Their sublime deeds of faith, daring, and self-sacrifice usually spring from questionable motives. The weak hate not wickedness but weakness; and one instance of their hatred of weakness is hatred of self. All the passionate pursuits of the weak are in some degree a striving to escape, blur, or disguise an unwanted self. It is a striving shot through with malice, envy, self-deception, and a host of petty impulses; yet it often culminates in superb achievements. Votes: 0
Passionate intensity may serve as a substitute for confidence. Votes: 0
The vigor of a mass movement stems from the propensity of its followers for united action and self-sacrifice. When we ascribe the success of a movement to its faith, doctrine, propaganda, leadership, ruthlessness and so on, we are but referring to instruments of unification and to means used to inculcate a readiness for self-sacrifice. It is perhaps impossible to understand the nature of a mass movement unless it is recognized that their chief preoccupation is to foster, perfect and perpetuate a facility for united action and self-sacrifice. Votes: 0
Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease. Votes: 0
Though they seem at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never meet. Votes: 0
The nineteenth century planted the words which the twentieth century ripened into the atrocities of Stalin and Hitler. There is hardly an atrocity committed in the twentieth century that was not foreshadowed or even advocated by some noble man of words in the nineteenth. Votes: 0
The desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection- real or imagined- by them. Votes: 0
The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led. Votes: 0
The ideal of self-advancement which the civilizing west offers to backward populations brings with it the plague of individual frustration. All the advantages brought by the West are ineffectual substitutes for the sheltering and soothing anonymity of communal existence. Votes: 0
Words have ruined more souls than any devil's agency. Votes: 0
What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored. Votes: 0
He who has nothing and wants something is less frustrated than he who has something and wants more. Votes: 0
One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations. Votes: 0
It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have "something worth fighting for,they do not feel like fighting. Votes: 0
Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born of experience and the possession of skill. Where there is the necessary skill to move mountains there is no need for the faith that moves mountains. Votes: 0
Spiritual stagnation ensues when man's environment becomes unpredictable or when his inner life is made wholly predictable. Votes: 0
It is also plausible that those movements with the greatest inner contradiction and between profession and practice - that is to say with a strong feeling of guilt - are likely to be the most fervent in imposing their faith on others. Votes: 0
Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults. Votes: 0
A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities. Votes: 0
When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant. Votes: 0
Conservatism is sometimes a symptom of sterility. Those who have nothing in them that can grow and develop must cling to what they have in beliefs, ideas and possessions. The sterile radical, too, is basically conservative. He is afraid to let go of the ideas and beliefs he picked up in his youth lest his life be seen as empty and wasted. Votes: 0
The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure. Votes: 0
It is not at all simple to understand the simple. Votes: 0
The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one's individual distinctness in a compact collective whole. Votes: 0
There is no reason why humanity cannot be served equally by weighty and trivial motives. Votes: 0
The readiness to praise others indicates a desire for excellence and perhaps an ability to realize it. Votes: 0
The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others. Votes: 0
The craving to change the world is perhaps a reflection of the craving to change ourselves. Votes: 0
Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation. Votes: 0
Rudeness luxuriates in the absence of self-respect. Votes: 0
Somewhere between the Angels and the French lies the rest of humanity. Votes: 0
It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world. Votes: 0
Love-making is radical, while marriage is conservative. Votes: 0
The burning conviction that we have a holy duty towards others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like a giving hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless. Votes: 0
Only the individual who has come to terms with his self can have a dispassionate attitude toward the world. Votes: 0
Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt. Votes: 0
A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific. Votes: 0
Take man's most fantastic invention- God. Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it. Votes: 0
We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact Votes: 0
The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness. Votes: 0
The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter. Votes: 0
All prayers and hopes are a reaching-out for coincidences. Votes: 0
A sublime religion inevitably generates a strong feeling of guilt. There is an unavoidable contrast between loftiness of profession and imperfection of practice. And, as one would expect, the feeling of guilt promotes hate and brazenness. Thus it seems that the more sublime the faith the more virulent the hatred it breeds. Votes: 0
There is no alienation that a little power will not cure. Votes: 0
In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued. Votes: 0
The Americans are poor haters in international affairs because of their innate feeling of superiority over all foreigners. An American's hatred for a fellow American.is far more virulent than any antipathy he can work up against foreigners.Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life. Votes: 0
It is startling to see how the oppressed almost invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors. Votes: 0
It is a strange thing that both the injurer and the injured, the sinner and he who is sinned against, should find in the mass movement an escape from a blemished life. Votes: 0
The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself. Votes: 0
The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor. Votes: 0
It is the acquisition of skills in particular, irrespective of their utility, that is potent in making life meaningful. Since man has no inborn skills, the survival of the species has depended on the ability to acquire and perfect skills. Hence the mastery of skills is a uniquely human activity and yields deep satisfaction. Votes: 0
The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity. Votes: 0
We often use strong language not to express a powerful emotion but to evoke it in us. Votes: 0
The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and function without him. This is true not only of the writer, artist and scientist, but of creators in other fields.With the noncreative it is the other way around: in whatever they do, they arrange things so that they themselves become indispensable. Votes: 0
To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for. It is only when we see ourselves as actors in a staged (and therefore unreal) performance that death loses its frightfulness and finality and becomes an act of make-believe and a theatrical gesture. It is one of the main tasks of a real leader to mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in his followers the illusion that they are participating in a grandiose spectacle, a solemn or lighthearted dramatic performance. Votes: 0
A person's creative ability decreases in direct proportion to the degree to which he takes himself seriously. Votes: 0
The well-adjusted make poor prophets. Votes: 0
When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak. Votes: 0
What are we when we are alone? Some, when they are alone, cease to exist. Votes: 0
To be aware how fruitful the playful mood can be is to be immune to the propaganda of the alienated, which extols resentment as a fuel of achievement. Votes: 0
In products of the human mind, simplicity marks the end of a process of refining, while complexity marks a primitive stage. Michelangelo 's definition of art as the purgation of superfluities suggests that the creative effort consists largely in the elimination of that which complicates and confuses a pattern Votes: 0
For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. And whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature and potentialities. Votes: 0
The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion. According to Renan, "The day after that on which the world should no longer believe in God, atheists would be the wretchedest of all men." Votes: 0
Nothing so bolsters our self-confidence and reconciles us with ourselves as the continuous ability to create; to see things grow and develop under our hand, day in, day out. Votes: 0
To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. It not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give their allegiance to him who offers them a grievance. Votes: 0
The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others. The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit this earth and the kingdom of heaven, too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish. Votes: 0
There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. Votes: 0
There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. Votes: 0
The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. Votes: 0
It is apparently vital that we should be in the dark about ourselves not to be clear about our intentions, fears, and hopes. There is a stubborn effort in us to set up a compact screen between consciousness and the self. Votes: 0
A multitude of words is probably the most formidable means of blurring and obscuring thought. There is no thought, however momentous, that cannot be expressed lucidly in 200 words. Votes: 0
All leaders strive to turn their followers into children. Votes: 0
The ratio between supervisory and producing personnel is always highest where the intellectuals are in power. In a Communist country it takes half the population to supervise the other half. Votes: 0
By all odds, earliest man, so naked to the elements and to deadly enemies, should have existed in a state of constant shock. We find him instead the only lighthearted being in a deadly serious universe.... He alone, with childish carelessness, tinkered and played, and exerted himself more in the pursuit of superfluities than of necessities. Yet the tinkering and playing, and the fascination with the nonessential, were a chief source of the inventiveness which enabled man to prevail over better-equipped and more-purposeful animals. Votes: 0
The autonomous individual, striving to realize himself and prove his worth, has created all that is great in literature, art, music, science and technology. The autonomous individual, also, when he can neither realize himself nor justify his existence by his own efforts, is a breeding call of frustration, and the seed of the convulsions which shake our world to its foundations. Votes: 0
Faith is primarily a process of identification; the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal. Votes: 0
By circumstance and perhaps also by inclination, I think in complete intellectual isolation. To expect others to help me think seems to me almost like expecting them to help me digest my food. Votes: 0
...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves. Votes: 0
First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket. Votes: 0
Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity. Votes: 0
To lose one's life is but to lose the present; and, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much. Votes: 0
Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience... The desire to escape or camouflage their unsatisfactory selves develops in the frustrated a facility for pretending -- for making a show -- and also a readiness to identify themselves wholly with an imposing spectacle. Votes: 0
Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own...Whether it our own meaningless self we are upholding, or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith. Votes: 0
Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon. Votes: 0
It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be. Votes: 0
Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action. Votes: 0
Rudeness is the weak man's limitation of strength. Votes: 0
Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind. Votes: 0
This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter Votes: 0
Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist. Votes: 0
The ignorant are a reservoir of daring. It almost seems that those who have yet to discover the known are particularly equipped for dealing with the unknown. The unlearned have often rushed in where the learned feared to tread, and it is the credulous who are tempted to attempt the impossible. They know not whither they are going, and give chance a chance. Votes: 0
Those who feel guilty are afraid; and those who are afraid somehow feel guilty. To the onlooker, too, the fearful seem guilty. Votes: 0
An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity--the endless flow of life and death--than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous. Votes: 0
Nature attains perfection, but man never does. Votes: 0
All mass movements avail themselves of action as a means of unification. The conflicts a mass movement seeks and incites serve not only to down its enemies but also to strip its followers of their distinct individuality and render them more soluble in the collective medium. Votes: 0
Successful action tends to become an end in itself. Votes: 0
The conservatism of a religion - it's orthodoxy - is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap. Votes: 0
Men of thought seldom work well together, whereas between men of action there is usually an easy camaraderie. Votes: 0
The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate. Votes: 0
The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities. Votes: 0
No one has a right to happiness. Votes: 0
The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers. Votes: 0
To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition. Votes: 0
They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society. Votes: 0
The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us. Votes: 0
Every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. The indications are that such an impairment is brought about not by strengthening the individual and pitting him against the possessors of power, but by distributing and diversifying power and pitting one category or unit of power against the other. Where power is one, the defeated individual, however strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse. Votes: 0
True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society. Votes: 0
There is no reason to believe that the nature of the violent minorities is now greatly different from what it was in the past. What has changed is the will and ability of the majority to react. Votes: 0
The truth seems to be that propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new; nor can it keep people persuaded once they have ceased to believe. It penetrates into minds already open, and rather than instill opinion it articulates and justifies opinions already present in the minds of its recipients. Votes: 0
The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others. Votes: 0
When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives. Votes: 0
The original insight is most likely to come when elements stored in different compartments of the mind drift into the open, jostle one another, and now and then form new combinations. Votes: 0
God alone is satisfied with what He is and can proclaim: "I am what I am." Unlike God, man strives with all his might to be what he is not. He incessantly proclaims: "I am what I am not. Votes: 0
Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest. Votes: 0
Poverty when coupled with creativeness is usually free of frustration. This is true of the poor artisan skilled in his trade and of the poor writer, artist, and scientist in the full possession of creative powers. Nothing so bolsters our self-confidence and reconciles us with ourselves as the continuous ability to create; to see things grow and develop under our hand, day in, day out. The decline of handicrafts in modern times is perhaps one of the causes for the rise of frustration and the increased susceptibility of the individual to mass movements. Votes: 0
Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading. Votes: 0
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest. A society which gives unlimited freedom to the individual, more often than not attains a disconcerting sameness. Votes: 0
Whenever we proclaim the uniqueness of a religion , a truth , a leader, a nation, a race, a part or a holy cause, we are also proclaiming our own uniqueness. Votes: 0
Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character. Votes: 0
To find the cause of our ills in something outside ourselves, something specific that can be spotted and eliminated, is a diagnosis that cannot fail to appeal. To say that the cause of our troubles is not in us but in the Jews , and pass immediately to the extermination of the Jews, is a prescription likely to find a wide acceptance. Votes: 0
When cowardice becomes a fashion its adherents are without number, and it masquerades as forbearance, reasonableness and whatnot. Votes: 0
To think out a problem is not unlike drawing a caricature. You have to exaggerate the salient point and leave out that which is not typical. "To illustrate a principle ," says Bagehot , "you must exaggerate much and you must omit much." As to the quantity of absolute truth in a thought : it seems to me the more comprehensive and unobjectionable a thought becomes, the more clumsy and unexciting it gets. I like half-truths of a certain kind they are interesting and they stimulate. Votes: 0
Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. Votes: 0
A good sentence is a key . It unlocks the mind of the reader. Votes: 0
There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves. Votes: 0
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. ... Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor. In a Communist state love of neighbor may be classed as counter-revolutionary. Votes: 0
It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream. Votes: 0
This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. Our most persistent and spectacular efforts are concerned not with the preservation of what we are but with the building up of an imaginary conception of ourselves in the opinion of others. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter. Votes: 0
Our doubts about ourselves cannot be banished except by working at that which is the one and only thing we know we ought to do. Other people's assertions cannot silence the howling dirge within us. It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream. Votes: 0
We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion. Votes: 0
It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise. Votes: 0
It is the fate of every great achievement to be pounced upon by pedants and imitators who drain it of life and turn it into an orthodoxy which stifles all stirrings of originality. Votes: 0
Help your sister's boat across the water, and yours too will reach the other side. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind. Votes: 0
One might equate growing up with a mistrust of words. A mature person trusts his eyes more than his ears. Irrationality often manifests itself in upholding the word against the evidence of the eyes. Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard. Votes: 0
Facts are counterrevolutionary. Votes: 0
However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us. Votes: 0
Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power. Votes: 0
The aspiration toward freedom is the most essentially human of all human manifestations. Votes: 0
Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience. Votes: 0
The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities. Votes: 0
A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation. Votes: 0
To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him. Votes: 0
In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat. Votes: 0
The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed. Votes: 0
It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings. Votes: 0
Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Votes: 0
Man's chief goal in life is still to become and stay human, and defend his achievements against the encroachment of nature. Votes: 0
There is a time when the word "eventually" has the soothing effect of a promise, and a time when the word evokes in us bitterness and scorn. Votes: 0
A peculiar side of credulity is that it is often joined with a proneness to imposture. The association of believing and lying is not characteristic solely of children. They inability or unwillingness to see things as they are promotes both gullibility and charlatanism. Votes: 0
More significant than the fact that poets write abstrusely, painters paint abstractly, and composers compose unintelligible music is that people should admire what they cannot understand; indeed, admire that which has no meaning or principle. Votes: 0
Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end results of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay. Votes: 0
The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we call our common sense, our practical point of view. Actually, these are names for an all-absorbing familiarity with things as they are. . . . Thus it happens that when the times become unhinged, it is the practical people who are caught unaware . . . still clinging to things that no longer exist. Votes: 0
There is probably nothing more sublime than discontent transmuted into a work of art, a scientific discovery, and so on. Votes: 0
Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others. Votes: 0
The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance. Votes: 0
A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend. Votes: 0
There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members. Votes: 0
To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain enormously in confidence before he could conceive an all-powerful God who obeys his own laws. Votes: 0
The unpredictability inherent in human affairs is due largely to the fact that the by-products of a human process are more fateful than the product. Votes: 0
Every extreme attitude is a fight from the self. Votes: 0
Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom." Votes: 0
Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities. Votes: 0
To believe that if we could have but this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness. Votes: 0
People in a hurry cannot think, cannot grow, nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility. Votes: 0
Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. The crypto-businessman is the true revolutionary in a Communist country. Votes: 0
To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium. Votes: 0
...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything. Votes: 0
There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day; we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Votes: 0
people with a sense of fulfillment think it is a good world and would like to conserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change. Votes: 0
The leader personifies the certitude of the creed and the defiance and grandeur of power. He articulates and justifies the resentment damned up in the souls of the frustrated. He kindles the vision of a breath-taking future so as to justify the sacrifice of a transitory present. He stages a world of make-believe so indispensable for the realization of self-sacrifice and united action. Votes: 0
Both Faith and Terror are instruments for the elimination of individual self-respect. Terror crushes the autonomy of self-respect, where Faith obtains its more or less voluntary surrender. In both cases, the result of the elimination of individual autonomy is - automatism. Both Faith and Terror reduce the human entity to a formula that can be manipulated at will. Votes: 0
Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or rather the rejection of the self. Dedication in the obverse side of self-rejection. Man alone is a religious animal because, as Montaigne points out, it is a malady confined to man, and not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves. Votes: 0
Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless. Votes: 0
To be ruthless requires belief that our life on earth is but a brief prelude to an afterlife, or a temporary sacrifice before some utopia can be instituted. Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains. Votes: 0
The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness. The remarkable thing is that the cessation of the inner dialogue marks also the end of our concern with the world around us. It is as if we noted the world and think about it only when we have to report it to ourselves. Votes: 0
It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs. Votes: 0
There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgement. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom- freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies part of the attractiveness of a mass movement Votes: 0
There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness. Votes: 0
To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights. Votes: 0
We probably have a greater love for those we support than for those who support us. Our vanity carries more weight than our self-interest. Votes: 0
The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world. Votes: 0
Even the sober desire for progress is sustained by faith—faith in the intrinsic goodness of human nature and in the omnipotence of science. It is a defiant and blasphemous faith, not unlike that held by the men who set out to build a "city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven" and who believed that "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Votes: 0
If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope. Votes: 0
The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority. Votes: 0
To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair. Votes: 0
To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalizes -- we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world. Votes: 0
The Renaissance was a time of mercenary soldiers, ours is a time of mercenary labor. Votes: 0
In human affairs every solution serves only to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. There are no final solutions. Votes: 0
There is need for some kind of make-believe in order to face death unflinchingly. To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for. Votes: 0
Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another. Votes: 0
Vaguely at first, then more distinctly, I realized that man is an eternal stranger on this planet. Votes: 0
In human affairs, the best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from. Votes: 0
When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. Votes: 0
We can never have enough of that which we do not want. Votes: 0
Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have. Votes: 0
Communists are frustrated capitalists. Votes: 0
The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind. Votes: 0
When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom — freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse. Votes: 0
Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder. Votes: 0
Action can give us the feeling of being useful, but only words can give us a sense of weight and purpose. Votes: 0
In man's life, the absence of an essential component usually leads to the adoption of a substitute. The substitute is usually embraced with vehemence and extremism, for we have to convince ourselves that what we took as second choice is the best there ever was. Thus blind faith is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves; insatiable desire a substitute for hope; accumulation a substitute for growth; fervent hustling a substitute for purposeful action; and pride a substitute for an unattainable self-respect. Votes: 0
The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind. Votes: 0
In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it given a more or less free hand in the cultural field. By frustrating the scribe's craving for commanding action, the trader draws upon himself the scribe's wrath and scorn. Votes: 0
There is apparently no surer way of turning a thing into its opposite than by exaggerating it Votes: 0
When watching men of power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they know it or not, their main purpose is the elimination or neutralization of the independent individual- the independent voter, consumer, worker, owner, thinker- and that every device they employ aims at turning men into a manipulable animated instrument which is Aristotle's definition of a slave. Votes: 0
Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era of events. The new barbarism of the twentieth century is the echo of words bandied about by brilliant speakers and writers in the second half of the nineteenth. Votes: 0
The ruthlessness born of self-seeking is ineffectual compared with the ruthlessness sustained by dedication to a holy cause. God wishes, said Calvin, that one should put aside all humanity when it is a question of striving for His glory.. Votes: 0
A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaningless of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring upon them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole. Votes: 0
The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money. The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been a passage from considerations of money to considerations of power. Votes: 0
We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us. Votes: 0
All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance. Votes: 0
To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as he really is. It is by eliminating man from their equation that the makers of history can predict the future, and the writers of history can give a pattern to the past. Votes: 0
Marriage has for women many equivalents of joining a mass movement. It offers them a new purpose in life, a new future and a new identity (a new name). The boredom of spinsters and of women who can no longer find joy and fulfillment in marriage stems from an awareness of a barren, spoiled life. By embracing a holy cause and dedicating their energies and substance to its advancement, they find a new life full of purpose and meaning. Votes: 0
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart. For we can win a man's heart one day and lose it the next. But when we break a proud spirit we achieve something that is final and absolute. Votes: 0
Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person. Votes: 0
Man is a luxury loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles. Votes: 0
Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even when men league themselves mightily together to promote tolerance and peace on earth, they are likely to be violently intolerant toward those not of a like mind. Votes: 0
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul. Votes: 0
There is a grandeur in the uniformity of the mass. When a fashion, a dance, a song, a slogan or a joke sweeps like wildfire from one end of the continent to the other, and a hundred million people roar with laughter, sway their bodies in unison, hum one song or break forth in anger and denunciation, there is the overpowering feeling that in this country we have come nearer the brotherhood of man than ever before. Votes: 0
The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us. Votes: 0
The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new . . . is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new. Votes: 0
Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America, Votes: 0
Imitation is often a shortcut to a solution. We copy when we lack the inclination, the ability or the time to work out an independent solution. People in a hurry will imitate more readily than people at leisure. Hustling thus tends to produce uniformity. And in the deliberate fusing of individuals into a compact group, incessant action will play a considerable role. Votes: 0
That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them. Votes: 0
It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both in the market place and on the battlefield men who set their hearts on toys have often displayed unequal initiative and drive. And one must be ignorant of the creative process to look for a close correspondence between motive and achievement in the world of thought and imagination. Votes: 0
One word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made perservereingly during fifty-five years; that word is failure Votes: 0
Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success Votes: 0
The necessary has never been man's top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, man's greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities. Votes: 0
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Votes: 0
The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the front men with insatiable appetites for action, power and all that the world has to offer. Votes: 0
A just society must strive with all its might to right wrongs even if righting wrongs is a highly perilous undertaking. But if it is to survive, a just society must be strong and resolute enough to deal swiftly and relentlessly with those who would mistake its good will for weakness. Votes: 0
Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us. Votes: 0
Nothing so offends the doctrinaire intellectual as our ability to achieve the momentous in a matter-of-fact way, unblessed by words. Votes: 0
I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us. Votes: 0
Totalitarianism spells simplification: an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power. Votes: 0
My writing is done in railroad yards while waiting for a freight, in the fields while waiting for a truck, and at noon after lunch. Towns are too distracting. Votes: 0
However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable. Votes: 0
Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and that they usually join of their own accord, it is assumed: 1) that frustration of itself, without any proselytizing prompting from the outside, can generate most of the peculiar characteristics of the true believer; 2) that an effective technique of conversion consists basically in the inculcation and fixation of proclivities and responses indigenous to the frustrated mind. Votes: 0
...That genius is a rare exception (:) It's not true. Talent and genius have been wasted on enormous scale throughout our history; this is all I know for sure. Votes: 0
When the Greeks said, Whom the gods love die young, they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested, that those favored by the gods stay young till the day they die; young and playful. Votes: 0
The purpose of philosophers is to show people what is right under their noses. Votes: 0
The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it. Votes: 0
Give people pride and they'll live on bread and water, bless their exploiters, and even die for them. Self-surrender is a transaction of barter: we surrender our sense of human dignity, our judgement, or moral and aesthetic sense for pride. If there is pride in being free, we are ready to die for liberty. If there is pride to be derived from an identification with a leader, we grovel in the dust before a Napoléon, Hitler or Stalin and are ready to die for him. If there is a distinction in suffering we search for martyrdom as for hidden treasure. Votes: 0
The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders. Votes: 0
Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. Votes: 0
Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda. Votes: 0
A plant needs roots in order to grow. With man it is the other way around: only when he grows does he have roots and feels at home in the world. Votes: 0
However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing. Votes: 0
You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness. Votes: 0
When we are in competition with ourselves, and match our todays against our yesterdays, we derive encouragement from past misfortunes and blemishes. Moreover, the competition with ourselves leaves unimpaired our benevolence toward our fellow men. Votes: 0
The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents. Votes: 0
All great art is revolutionary because it touches upon the reality of man and questions the reality of the various transitory forms of human society. Votes: 0
Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing. Votes: 0
Animals often strike us as passionate machines. Votes: 0
Attuned
Be Practical
Best Art
Best Part
Depended
Escaping from people
Eternal existence
Example To Others
Feeling Lonely
Feeling Worthless
Fellow Men
Good Man
Great Man
Greatest Man
Hopes And Expectations
Imitate
Imitating others
Kind Deeds
Malady
Missing Him
Move Mountains
Not with people
Original Idea
Original Ideas
Our Dreams
Owning A House
Pleasant Surprises
Predicting the future
Preoccupation
Prophesy
Prophesying lies
Really True
Searching For Happiness
Those who dreamed
Time To Die
Vigorous
Wonderful Feeling
Young Age
Be a good man
Boot lickers
Change revolution
Cheating trust
Dream come
Empty head
Evil power
Faith not religion
Feeling cheated
Feeling missing
Feeling right
Grow old
Happiness and unhappiness
Have no time
His ex
Hope and expectation
Ideas are power
Lonely house
Lonely loneliness
Missing that someone
Needing faith
Needing religion
New undertakings
Not empty
Outer space and god
Pleasant surprise
Power in macbeth
Power of an idea
Reflection in eyes
Revolution and change
Right man
Right time
Ruined dreams
Search for happiness
Solitary people
Some degree
Someone wonderful
Source of happiness
Space and stars
Teaching the young
True and lies
True dreams
Trust someone
Understanding other
Understanding others
Visionary leader