The fact is that up to now a free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither read more

The fact is that up to now a free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither accorded him a superior status to sustain his confidence nor made it easy for him to acquire an unquestioned sense of social usefulness. For he derives his sense of usefulness mainly from directing, instructing, and planning- from minding other people's business- and is bound to feel superfluous and neglected where people believe themselves competent to manage individual and communal affairs, and are impatient of supervision and regulation. A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, read more

Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.

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

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

The Negro's great stumbling block in the drive toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux read more

The Negro's great stumbling block in the drive toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.

The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, read more

The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in read more

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may read more

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

There in no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.

There in no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.