“The world is filled with smart, talented, educated and gifted people. We meet them every day. They are all around us.”

Source: 1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: Life has its beginning and its maturity comes into being when an individual rises above self to something greater. Few individuals learn this, and so they go through life merely existing and never living. Now you see signs all along in your everyday life with individuals who are the victims of self-centeredness. They are the people who live an eternal “I.” They do not have the capacity to project the “I” into the “Thou." They do not have the mental equipment for an eternal, dangerous and sometimes costly altruism. They live a life of perpetual egotism. And they are the victims all around of the egocentric predicament. They start out, the minute you talk with them, talking about what they can do, what they have done. They’re the people who will tell you, before you talk with them five minutes, where they have been and who they know. They’re the people who can tell you in a few seconds, how many degrees they have and where they went to school and how much money they have. We meet these people every day. And so this is not a foreign subject. It is not something far off. It is a problem that meets us in everyday life. We meet it in ourselves, we meet in other selves: the problem of selfcenteredness.

Introduction to Treasury of the Free World (1946)

2010s, Democratic National Convention speech (2012)

Speech to Congress https://www.c-span.org/video/?434564-1/us-house-passes-faa-funding-extension-264155 (September 28 2017)

State of the Union Address (12 January 1977)
1970s

Original: (it) Le persone vere spaventano. Poi, se sono anche intelligenti, sono il peggior incubo di chi usa un copione per andare in giro.
Source: prevale.net