“Far more critical than what we know or what we don’t know is what we don’t want to know.”

Language was invented to ask questions.

An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.

Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success.

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

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.

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.

We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.

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.

All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.

Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.

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.

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.

The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.

The end of one story is the beginning of another.

If you start out looking at somebody, wondering whether he’s good or bad, I think you’re starting out in the wrong direction. I think we’re all good and we’re all bad.

Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light.

When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you.

Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible.

It’s the willingness to break open, to let go of all you have learned to hold that keeps you whole.

If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves.

From the time we’re born until we die, we’re kept busy with artificial stuff that isn’t important.