The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved.
If the lives of men can be measured in terms of years, ideologies in decades, and nations in centuries, then the unit measuring civilizations, born of the interaction among peoples, would be the millennium.
One white man on the platform in South Carolina asked us where we were going--we had got off the train to get some fresh air and to dust the grit and dust out of our clothes. When we said Africa he looked offended and tickled too. Niggers going to Africa, he said to his wife. Now I have seen everything.
Modern society includes three types of men who can never think very highly of the world--the priest, the physician, and the attorney-at-law. They all wear black, too, for are they not in mourning for every virtue and every illusion?
To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.
I am all kinds of a democrat, so far as I can discover but the root of the whole business is this, that I believe in the patriotism and energy and initiative of the average man.
I began to realize that the most profound wisdom of man was rooted in the answers given by faith and that I did not have the right to deny them on the grounds of reason; above all, I realized that these answers alone can form a reply to the question of life.
Every serious man in dealing with really serious subjects carefully avoids writing. ... There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any writing of mine dealing with this subject.
The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient.
O men! you can take life easily but, remember, none of you can give life! So, have mercy, have compassion! And, never forget, that compassion makes the world noble and beautiful.