There's a tremendous gap between public opinion and public policy.

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.

I liked things better when I didn't understand them.

When you are standing at a crossroads in your life, realizethat the greatest block that you can put in front of your Self is the ideathat there is a ‘right’ choice.

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.

In life, you have to take lots of decisions and if you don't take decisions you would never do anything because you would spend all your time choosing between things you could do.

I think that military, corporate, and non-political organizations are pretty much similar.

Some of my very closest friends are my guy friends, going back to the third grade, so I believe in the integrity of the male-female friendship.

Loneliness is the teacher of giving.

The revolts themselves open up something very new. One has to be aware, or listen, or open one's mind to what are the new beginnings.

To not pursue the thing one wants would be a waste of one's life.

I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent.