To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.

Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another.

It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate.

A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.

We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the remarkable fact that many inventions had their birth as toys.

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

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

There is nothing more explosive than a skilled population condemned to inaction. Such a population is likely to become a hotbed of extremism and intolerance, and be receptive to any proselytizing ideology, however absurd and vicious, which promises vast action.

A nation without dregs and malcontents, is orderly, decent, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.