“To deal with the problems of modern society, hard thought, confrontation with an often unpleasant reality, and moral courage are needed, for which a vague and self-congratulatory broadmindedness is no substitute.”

“In order to deal with reality successfully - to pursue and achieve the values which his life requires - man needs self-esteem; he needs to be confident of his efficacy and worth.”

“[S]hould we attempt to use sensible words to deal with these problems, they will be caught up immediately in the structures of the official arguments which accompany the official modern ideologies — arguments as sterile as the ideologies are irrelevant. Our society contains no method of serious self-criticism for the simple reason that it is now a self-justifying system which generates its own logic.”

“Dreams have a hard time surviving when confronted with reality.”

“Again that smile of exquisite and self-congratulatory piety.”

“Jingoistic rhetoric and puerile self-congratulatory nationalism.”

“A moral point of view too often serves as a substitute for understanding in technological matters.”

“Morals do not come from the state and society. Morality deals with weightier matters that measure our thoughts, words, and deeds against universals that are true regardless of time and place.”

“The appearance in the mind of undesirable and ignoble thoughts, even if they are very fleeting and only half-articulate, has an unpleasant effect upon one’s self-esteem. Therefore such thoughts are often shoved aside, unattended to and unopposed. Often they are also camouflaged by more pleasing and respectable labels which hide their true nature. Thoughts disposed of in either of these two ways will strengthen the accumulated power of ignoble tendencies in the subconscious.”

“Whereas moral courage is the righting of wrongs, creative courage, in contrast, is the discovering of new forms, new symbols, new patterns on which a new society can be built.”