It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.
It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men.
What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?
The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor.
The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.
To the old, the new is usually bad news.
The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.
We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.
Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.
The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.
It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.
The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.