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.

I do not understand the capricious lewdness of the sleeping mind.

I do not understand the capricious lewdness of the sleeping mind.

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.

There are many who find the burdens, the anxiety, and the isolation of an individual existence unbearable. This is particularly read more

There are many who find the burdens, the anxiety, and the isolation of an individual existence unbearable. This is particularly true when the opportunities for self-advancement are relatively meager, and one's individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for. Such persons sooner or later turn their backs on an individual existence and strive to acquire a sense of worth and a purpose by an identification with a holy cause, a leader, or a movement. The faith and pride they derive from such an identification serve them as substitutes for the unattainable self-confidence and self-respect.

The burning of an author's books, imprisonment for opinion's sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays read more

The burning of an author's books, imprisonment for opinion's sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant age pays to the genius of its time.

A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted read more

A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific.

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, deprecating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a read more

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, deprecating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.

Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.

Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.

Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. read more

Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. He is both an unfinished animal and an unfinished man. It is this incurable unfinishedness which sets man apart from other living things. For, in the attempt to finish himself, man becomes a creator. Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing.