Plainly elites in America don't want democracy. And why should they? Democracy is always harmful to elite interests. Almost by definition.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

A single minded vision gives strength of purpose.

For the bored souls, sometimes sea is the best answer!

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

For the longest time I was afraid I'd have to keep on working at the factories. There was a steel mill and a pottery; if you didn't go to college, you went to work in those places.

We need fewer philosophies and more philosophers.

I don't see why you reporters keep confusing Brooks (Robinson) and me. Can't you see that we wear different numbers.

Adherence to men, is often disloyalty to principles.

A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.

We can use laws to prosecute and make people think twice before going to do something like blowing up Buddhas and other things.

After you've been working fairly intensively on a novel for six months you never want to see the damn thing again.