“The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.”

Address on receiving the Nehru Award (10 January 1977), published in Virginia Woolf Quarterly (1977), Vol. 3, p. 11; also quoted in The Signs of Language Revisited : An Anthology to Honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima (2000) edited by Karen Emmorey and Harlan L. Lane, p. 330; the last sentence is Inscribed in metallic lettering at the entrance of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.

A Brief History of Everything (1996)
Context: Gaia's main problems are not industrialization, ozone depletion, overpopulation, or resource depletion. Gaia's main problem is the lack of mutual understanding and mutual agreement in the noosphere about how to proceed with those problems. We cannot rein in industry if we cannot reach mutual understanding and mutual agreement based on a worldcentric moral perspective concerning the global commons. And we reach the worldcentric moral perspective through a difficult and laborious process of interior growth and transcendence.

Source: See You at the Top

… Acts of rebellion formerly regarded as manifestation of mere bestiality are now condoned as pathological outbursts; the possibility that such acts are the intentional projects of conscious men who are at once both demanding and expressing freedom is beyond the pale of conception. Thus are men robbed not only of their freedom but also of their dignity as creative human beings.
Source: Forced to be Free (1971), p. 68

Source: Principles of Economics (1998-), Ch. 1. Ten Principles of Economics; p. 4

Variant: Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

Letter 24, 1.
Letters, Book VI