“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.”

The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.

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.

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.

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.

Learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.

Communists are frustrated capitalists.

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.

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.

The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.

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.

To change everything, simply change your attitude.

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

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.

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.