To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement read more

To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement is possible, we need only refer to a passage in Engel's most famous book. Here, in 1878, Engels apodictically announced that military weapons are "now so perfected that no further progress of any revolutionizing influence is any longer possible." Henceforth "all further [technological] progress is by and large indifferent for land warfare. The age of evolution is in this regard essentially closed." This complacent conclusion shows in what the achievement of the innovator consists: he accomplishes what other people believe to be unthinkable and unfeasible.

Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self read more

There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They asked to be deceived.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow, sleep late.

If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow, sleep late.

The history of science knows scores of instances where an investigator was in the possession of all the important facts read more

The history of science knows scores of instances where an investigator was in the possession of all the important facts for a new theory but simply failed to ask the right questions.

Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved read more

Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change. The power he finds in his victimization may lead him to collective action against society, but it also encourages passivity within the sphere of his personal life.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives read more

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.