A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your own integrity. If you need a witness, be your own.

It is of particular value to learn to like yourself. Since you must spend so much time with yourself you might as well get some satisfaction out of the relationship.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the “oughtness” that forever confronts him.

If you can allow yourself to trust those little movements round your gut that tell you when something is interesting or exciting, they will tell you where to go.

Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

No matter how outrageous a lie may be, it will be accepted if stated loudly enough and often enough.

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.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.