You may break any written law in America with impunity. There is an unwritten law that you break at your peril. It is: do not attack the profit system.
Every civilizing step in history has been ridiculed as “sentimental,” “impractical,” or “womanish” . . . by those whose fun, profit, or convenience was at stake.
A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.
When ideas go unexamined and unchallenged for a long enough time, certain things happen. They become mythological, and they become very, very powerful. They create conformity. They intimidate.
The Duke of Cambridge protested that he wasn’t arguing against change. He favored it, he said, when there was no alternative.
It’s always been and always will be the same in the world: the horse does the work, and the coachman is tipped.
Hungry people cannot be good at learning or producing anything, except perhaps violence.
Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and this will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.
Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.
This is what the world honors: wealth, eminence, long life, a good name. This is what the world finds happiness in: a life of ease, rich food, fine clothes, beautiful sights, sweet sounds. People who can’t get these things fret a great deal and are afraid, wear themselves out rushing around on business, spend night and day scheming and scrutinizing. Man lives his life in company with worry, and if he lives a long time, then he has spent that much time worrying. This is a callous way to treat the body.
Time alone, oh, time will tell. / You think you’re in heaven, but you’re living in hell.
Money destroys human roots wherever it is able to penetrate, by turning desire for gain into the sole motive. It easily manages to outweigh all other motives, because the effort it demands of the mind is so very much less. Nothing is so clear and so simple as a row of figures.
The real measure of our wealth is how much we’d be worth if we lost all our money.
We must, in short, make it economically possible for people to act upon their own best moral values.
Whatever you do, don’t give up. Because all you can do once you’ve given up is bitch. I’ve known some great bitchers in my time. With some it’s a passion; with others, an art.
The ultimate aim of the quest . . . must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but wisdom and power to serve others.
Among the many legends that surround the Nepalese Gurkhas of the British Army is the story of a paratroop regiment in the Second World War. The leader of the regiment asked for volunteers for a particularly dangerous drop behind enemy lines. About half the Gurkhas promptly stepped forward. The leader then went through what the volunteers would be asked to do. Halfway into his explanation, a surprised voice piped up from the back: “Oh, you mean we can use parachutes?” Every remaining Gurkha joined the volunteers.
The best thing against worry is to take care of others right away.
