“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.”

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.

Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.

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

It just kills me to see people lose someone they love, so I want to do as much as I can: give money to doctors and hospitals; get nurses in there that care; put a smile on a little kid’s face.

Said after she had been seriously ill: The doctors were very brave about it.

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

People usually survive their illnesses, but the paper work eventually does them in. Filing a claim for insurance is terminal.

The truth of life is that, even the doctor needs a doctor.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent doctor and saint, and heard great argument about it and about: but evermore came out by the same door as in I went.

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.

Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism.