Society is like air; very high up, it is sublimated--too low down, a perfect choke-damp.

Society is like air; very high up, it is sublimated--too low down, a perfect choke-damp.

That is the whole trouble with being a heretic. One usually must think out everything for oneself.

That is the whole trouble with being a heretic. One usually must think out everything for oneself.

The thoughts of Plato and Machiavelli... don't seem quite enough armor for a world beset with splitting the atoms, urban read more

The thoughts of Plato and Machiavelli... don't seem quite enough armor for a world beset with splitting the atoms, urban guerrillas, nineteen varieties of psychotherapists, amplified guitars, napalm, computers, astronauts, and an atmosphere polluted simultaneously with auto exhaust and TV commercials.

...man has an irrepressible tendency to read meaning into the buzzing confusion of sights and sounds impinging on his senses; read more

...man has an irrepressible tendency to read meaning into the buzzing confusion of sights and sounds impinging on his senses; and where no agreed meaning can be found, he will provide it out of his own imagination.

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will read more

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death...

The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it.

The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it.

When reality becomes unbearable, the mind must withdraw from it and create a world of artificial perfection. Plato's world of read more

When reality becomes unbearable, the mind must withdraw from it and create a world of artificial perfection. Plato's world of pure Ideas and Forms, which alone is to be considered as real, whereas the world of nature which we perceive is merely its cheap Woolworth copy, is a flight into delusion.

All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, read more

All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance.

Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, read more

Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant.