It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.
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Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know. One read more
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know. One often obtains a clue to a person's nature by discovering the reasons for his or her imperviousness to certain impressions.
Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.
Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.
...brainpower is the scarcest commodity and the only one of real value.
...brainpower is the scarcest commodity and the only one of real value.
Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown-ups will obstinately persist, read more
Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown-ups will obstinately persist, if only now and then, in composing small strings of sentences in their heads and achieving at least momentary logic. This probably cannot be prevented, but we have learned how to minimize the consequences by arranging that such grown-ups will be unable to pursue that logic very far. If they were at home in the technology of writing, there's no telling how much social disorder they would cause by thinking things out at length.Our schools have chosen to cut this danger off as close to the root as possible, thus taking measures to preclude not only the birth of thought but its conception. They give the pill to even the youngest children, but just to be on the safe side, they give it to everybody else, too, especially all would-be schoolteachers.
The readiness to praise others indicates a desire for excellence and perhaps an ability to realize it.
The readiness to praise others indicates a desire for excellence and perhaps an ability to realize it.
A man without force, is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted, that it cannot honor read more
A man without force, is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted, that it cannot honor a helpless man, although it can pity him.
The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning read more
The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.The remarkable thing is that the cessation of the inner dialogue marks also the end of our concern with the world around us. It is as if we noted the world and think about it only when we have to report it to ourselves.
He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great.
It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing, but the read more
It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.
