Great Throughts Treasury

"International relations are governed by interests, not by moral principles."

"For collective action it suffices if the mass can be managed; collective growth is only possible through the freedom and enlargement of individual minds."

"Loyalty is a noble quality, so long as it is not blind and does not exclude the higher loyalty to truth and decency."

"Be very careful never to show your own bias to anyone who is giving you information, or passing it on to you. Once he sees that you have a particular inclination he will instinctively tend to tell you what he thinks will suit you, and enhance your opinion of him."

"No clear thinking is possible in a passion – any more than it is possible to see clearly through glasses that are covered with steam."

"The courage of desperation."

"The history of mankind is the history of thought – of the gradual ascendancy of mind over matter."

"The spiritual development of humanity as a whole is like a pyramid, or a mountain peak, where all angles of ascent tend to converge the higher they climb."

"The principles of war, not merely one principle, can be condensed into a single word - "Concentration." But the truth this needs to be amplified as the concentration of strength against weakness. And for real value, it needs to be explained that the concentration of strength against weakness depends on the dispersion of your opponent's strength."