In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

The beginning of thought is in disagreement – not only with others but also with ourselves.

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.

The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and...

sterling qualities,” are at bottom convinced that their success is the result of a fortuitous combination of circumstances. The self-confidence of even the consistently successful is never absolute. They are never sure that they know...

We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.

There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.

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...

In the alchemy of man’s soul almost all noble attributes–courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc.–can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within...

Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

If free enterprise becomes a proselytizing holy cause, it will be a sign that its workability and advantages have ceased to be self-evident.

Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.

Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy – the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.

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.

In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists.

The leader has to be practical and a realist yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.

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.

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.

Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.

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. The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism...

Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.

In modern times, nationalism is the most copious and durable source of mass enthusiasm, and that nationalist fervor must be tapped if the drastic changes projected and initiated by revolutionary enthusiasm are to be consummated.

Anger is the prelude to courage.

When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.

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...

The greatest weariness comes from work not done.

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.

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...

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

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...

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...

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...

Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.

Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

There is perhaps some hope to be derived from the fact that in most instances where an attempt to realize an ideal society gave birth to the ugliness and violence of a prolonged active mass...