Source: "Quick Quotations" in My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)
Context: The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands.
The Bomb and the Opportunity (March 1946)
“The surest plan to make a Man
Is, think him so.”
No. 2.
The Biglow Papers (1848–1866), Series II (1866)
Source: Necromancer (1962), Chapter 5 (p. 36)
“The surest way to keep a secret is to make someone think they already know the answer.”
Source: Heretics of Dune
“Atheism alone is the surest way to morality.”
The Need of Atheism
Context: Because morality is a social necessity, the moment faith in god is banished, man's gaze turns from god to man and he becomes socially conscious. Religious belief prevented the growth of a sense of realism. But atheism at once makes man realistic and alive to the needs of morality. Atheism alone is the surest way to morality. Those who oppose atheism in any form betray their vested interests in inequality of some kind of other.
Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Man verdirbt einen Jüngling am sichersten, wenn man ihn anleitet, den Gleichdenkenden höher zu achten, als den Andersdenkenden.
The Dawn, Sec. 297
“The surest way to smartness is through massive dumbness.”
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)
