...everything is too important ever to be entrusted to professional experts, because every organization of such professionals and every established read more

...everything is too important ever to be entrusted to professional experts, because every organization of such professionals and every established social organization becomes a vested-interest institution more concerned with its efforts to maintain itself or advance its own interests than to achieve the purpose that society expects it to achieve.

He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to
society.

He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to
society.

The best way I know to win an argument is to start by being in the right.

The best way I know to win an argument is to start by being in the right.

Jefferson thought schools would produce free men: we prove him right by putting dropouts in jail.

Jefferson thought schools would produce free men: we prove him right by putting dropouts in jail.

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow if tomorrow might improve the odds.

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow if tomorrow might improve the odds.

Only God helps the badly dressed.

Only God helps the badly dressed.

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, read more

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, ''Keep tomorrow dark,'' and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) ''Cheat the Prophet.'' The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. Then they go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.

Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.

Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.

To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for. It is read more

To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for. It is only when we see ourselves as actors in a staged (and therefore unreal) performance that death loses its frightfulness and finality and becomes an act of make-believe and a theatrical gesture. It is one of the main tasks of a real leader to mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in his followers the illusion that they are participating in a grandiose spectacle, a solemn or lighthearted dramatic performance.