Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The conservatism of a religion - it's orthodoxy - is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap.
The readiness to praise others indicates a desire for excellence and perhaps an ability to realize it.
It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.
We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.
Action can give us the feeling of being useful, but only words can give us a sense of weight and purpose.
How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.
The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter.
Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.
Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.
Only the individual who has come to terms with his self can have a dispassionate attitude toward the world.
The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.
We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.
We usually see only the things we are looking for- so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.
It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.
A person's creative ability decreases in direct proportion to the degree to which he takes himself seriously.
Men of thought seldom work well together, whereas between men of action there is usually an easy camaraderie.
The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling.
A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion.
Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.
There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.
Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.
Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts.
Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have.
It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate.
There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.
It is startling to see how the oppressed almost invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors.
Radicalism itself ceases to be radical when absorbed mainly in preserving its control over a society or an economy.
Without a sense of proportion there can be neither good taste nor genuine intelligence, nor perhaps moral integrity.
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.
The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.
It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.
When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.
There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket.