“It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.”

“Life is just like a game, First you have to learn rules of the game, And then play it better then any one else.”

“Of all the communities available to us, there is not one I would want to devote myself to except for the society of the true seekers, which has very few living members at any one time.”

“Never memorize something that you can look up.”

“Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.”

“If tomorrow were never to come, it would not be worth living today.”

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”

“The mind that opens to a new idea never comes back to its original size.”

“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”

“The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think”

“Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.”

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

“The tendencies we have mentioned are something new for America. They arose when, under the influence of the two World Wars and the consequent concentration of all forces on a military goal, a predominantly military mentality developed, which with the almost sudden victory became even more accentuated. The characteristic feature of this mentality is that people place the importance of what Bertrand Russell so tellingly terms “naked power” far above all other factors which affect the relations between peoples. The Germans, misled by Bismarck’s successes in particular, underwent just such a transformation of their mentality—in consequence of which they were entirely ruined in less than a hundred years. I must frankly confess that the foreign policy of the United States since the termination of hostilities has reminded me, sometimes irresistibly, of the attitude of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and I know that, independent of me, this analogy has most painfully occurred to others as well. It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc.) are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thoughts—in short, the psychological factors—are considered as unimportant and secondary. Herein lies a certain resemblance to Marxism, at least insofar as its theoretical side alone is kept in view. The individual is degraded to a mere instrument; he becomes “human materiel.” The normal ends of human aspiration vanish with such a viewpoint. Instead, the military mentality raises “naked power” as a goal in itself—one of the strangest illusions to which men can succumb.”

“It is important to foster individuality, for only the individual can produce the new ideas.”

“Phantasie ist wichtiger als Wissen, denn Wissen ist begrenzt.”