The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

The envious man thinks that if his neighbor breaks a leg, he will be able to walk better himself.

The envious man thinks that if his neighbor breaks a leg, he will be able to walk better himself.

I know how men in exile feed on dreams.

I know how men in exile feed on dreams.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown-ups will obstinately persist, read more

Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown-ups will obstinately persist, if only now and then, in composing small strings of sentences in their heads and achieving at least momentary logic. This probably cannot be prevented, but we have learned how to minimize the consequences by arranging that such grown-ups will be unable to pursue that logic very far. If they were at home in the technology of writing, there's no telling how much social disorder they would cause by thinking things out at length.Our schools have chosen to cut this danger off as close to the root as possible, thus taking measures to preclude not only the birth of thought but its conception. They give the pill to even the youngest children, but just to be on the safe side, they give it to everybody else, too, especially all would-be schoolteachers.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical read more

We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs inordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.

The Americans are poor haters in international affairs because of their innate feeling of superiority over all foreigners. An American's read more

The Americans are poor haters in international affairs because of their innate feeling of superiority over all foreigners. An American's hatred for a fellow American...is far more virulent than any antipathy he can work up against foreigners...Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.