We know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude; and men are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and beget action; they kill and revive, corrupt and cure. The "men-of-words"- priests, prophets, intellectuals- have played a more decisive role in history than military leaders, statesmen, and businessmen.
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A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical read more
A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
Experience proves that those are oftenest abused who can be abused with the greatest impunity. Men are whipped oftenest who read more
Experience proves that those are oftenest abused who can be abused with the greatest impunity. Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest.
Anyone taken as an individual, is tolerably sensible and reasonable- as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes read more
Anyone taken as an individual, is tolerably sensible and reasonable- as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead.
Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves.
Men have ascribed to God imperfections that they would deplore in themselves.
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the read more
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.
Delay is ever fatal to those who are prepared.
Delay is ever fatal to those who are prepared.
Today the world changes so quickly that in growing up we take leave not just of youth but of the read more
Today the world changes so quickly that in growing up we take leave not just of youth but of the world we were young in.
People do not cooperate under the division of labor because they love or should love one another. They cooperate because read more
People do not cooperate under the division of labor because they love or should love one another. They cooperate because this best serves their own interests. Neither love nor charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict.
The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.
The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.
