The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the read more

The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the future, and therefore the more likely it is that more people will make more plans in such areas.

A wonderful discovery--psychoanalysis. Makes quite simple people feel they're complex.

A wonderful discovery--psychoanalysis. Makes quite simple people feel they're complex.

Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.

Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.

The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.

The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.

In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes- courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on- read more

In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes- courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on- can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion, even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.

We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.

It is perhaps not entirely so, though it has often been said, that man makes his God in his own read more

It is perhaps not entirely so, though it has often been said, that man makes his God in his own image. Rather does he create Him in the image of his cravings and dreams- in the image of what man wants to be. God making could be part of the process by which a society realizes its aspirations: it first embodies them in the conception of a particular God, and then proceeds to imitate that God. The confidence requisite for attempting the unprecedented is most effectively generated by the fiction that in realizing the new we are imitating rather than originating. Our preoccupation with heaven can be part of an effort to find precedents for the unprecedented.

All weakness tends to corrupt, and impotence corrupts absolutely.

All weakness tends to corrupt, and impotence corrupts absolutely.