The principal cause of war is war itself.

You can never really understand an individual unless you also understand the society,historical time period in which they live,personal troubles, and social issues

Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.

The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. This is its task and its promise.

What ordinary men are directly aware of and what they try to do are bounded by the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their powers are limited.

Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm.

Here's to the day when the complete works of Leon Trotsky are published and widely distributed in the Soviet Union. On that day the USSR will have achieved democracy!

Every revolution has its counterrevolution - that is a sign the revolution is for real.

To overcome the academic prose you have first to overcome the academic pose.

If you do not specify and confront real issues, what you say will surely obscure them. If you do not embody controversy, what you say will be an acceptance of the drift to the coming human hell.

Whatever sociology may be, it is the result of constantly asking the question, what is the meaning of this?

It's not that I'm angry

Stars on the sky, stars on the ground. It's hard to tell where the sky ends and the earth begins.

A boat without port is free only until the storm breaks out!

A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.

The way not to lead a monotonous life is to live for others.

You must take action yourself, for Buddhas only teach the way.

Comfort comes from knowing that people have made the same journey. And solace comes from understanding how others have learned to sing again.

So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.

Opportunities will always be there but the level you'd be able to fulfil those opportunities depends on you being fully present and working to the best of your ability.

Detachment is the beginning of mastery.