A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it read more

A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaningless of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring upon them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves- and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole.

Society is one vast conspiracy for carving one into the kind of statue likes, and then placing it in the read more

Society is one vast conspiracy for carving one into the kind of statue likes, and then placing it in the most convenient niche it has.

The test of civilization is the estimate of woman. Among savages she is a slave. In the dark ages of read more

The test of civilization is the estimate of woman. Among savages she is a slave. In the dark ages of Christianity she is a toy and a sentimental goddess. With increasing moral light, and greater liberty, and more universal justice, she begins to develop as an equal human being.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often read more

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is
truly free. First, society begins by read more

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is
truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If
this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the
finish by loading honors on your head.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at read more

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.

Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction read more

Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to publick opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem the true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, and the wrong the right.

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice read more

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

...most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic.

...most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic.