Most people are on the world, not in it—have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

Much of the evil in the world is due to the fact that man in general is hopelessly unconscious.

You must try to observe yourself more and more objectively, to look at everything in yourself as though another person.

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so act toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.

There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other persons point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own.

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

All that is important in this moment is movement. Make the movement vital and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

I’m fascinated with myself and love hearing the sound of my own voice. I’d like to hear what I have to say. A lot of people don’t like being alone because they truly don’t like themselves, but I love me.

I simply believe that some part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to the laws of space and time.

A great man is hard on himself; a small man is hard on others.

Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.

I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth.

The overwhelming importance of the atmosphere means that there are no longer any frontiers to defend against pollution, attack, or propaganda. It means, further, that only by a deep patriotic devotion to one’s country can there be a hope of the kind of protection of the whole planet, which is necessary for the survival of the people of other countries.

You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.

If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences.

We signal that good can be achieved amongst human beings who are prepared to trust, prepared to believe in the goodness of people.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute.

Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

When whole races and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals?

There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.

Fundamentally, there are only to ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion — the technique of the army and the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation — the technique of the marketplace.