“Nothing disturbs me more than superficiality and mere sloganizing on matters of public policy, and the suspicion that what the speaker is saying represents the full extent of his knowledge on the subject.”

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)
Context: Tongue-suicide is not only the choice of children. It is common among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated language leaves them with no access to what is left of their human instincts for they speak only to those who obey, or in order to force obedience. The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek — it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language — all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

But he could paint portraits, too.
Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), p. 116

Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Explains 'Death to America' Slogan http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/irans-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-explains-death-america-slogan-n456406 (November 3, 2015)
2015

Source: The Burning Secret and other stories

Husayn al-Nuri al-Tabarsi, Mustadrak al-Wasā'il, vol. 11, p. 323
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious

1930s, Fireside Chat in the night before signing the Fair Labor Standards (1938)
Context: In nine cases out of ten the speaker or writer who, seeking to influence public opinion, descends from calm argument to unfair blows hurts himself more than his opponent.
The Chinese have a story on this — a story based on three or four thousand years of civilization: Two Chinese coolies were arguing heatedly in the midst of a crowd. A stranger expressed surprise that no blows were being struck. His Chinese friend replied: "The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out."