Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless.

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

Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.

Totalitarianism spells simplification: an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power.

Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.

The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep.

We cannot be sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to die for it.

It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.

We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.