It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.
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Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era read more
Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era of events. The new barbarism of the twentieth century is the echo of words bandied about by brilliant speakers and writers in the second half of the nineteenth.
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.
What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a read more
What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.
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.
That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between hatred and read more
That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between hatred and a guilty conscience.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.
Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.
It is by becoming increasingly complex that the self might be said to grow.
It is by becoming increasingly complex that the self might be said to grow.
If your dream is a big dream, and if you want your life to work on the high level that read more
If your dream is a big dream, and if you want your life to work on the high level that you say you do, there's no way around doing the work it takes to get you there.
