“Those who rise to the top of organizations, who live to direct others, to wield power, are inevitably afflicted by weak egos, by a need to prove themselves. This explains why they are so easily frightened and so easily manipulated. And why they are so dangerous.”

“Why is it that countries which we call strong" are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it, why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so hard?”

“In my life so far, I have discovered that there are really only two kinds of people: those who are for you, and those who are against you. Learn to recognize them, for they are often and easily mistaken for each other.”

“What is needed is a noticeable unnoticeable style,… a directness of speech that seems to one judging easily imitable, to one trying it nothing less so.”

“The criticism of the reformers was directed not so much at the weakness or cruelty of those in authority, as at a bad economy of power.”

“and as they, when they have once mastered them, are easily able to manage all others; so I, after managing Xanthippe, can easily live with anyone else whatever.”

“It's not people in bands, is it? Why do people who take drugs, why are they in bands? 'Cos they're trying to prove themselves. To make themselves blank and numb and not able to communicate with other people.”

“This was incredibly foolish. To live just to die. And to die so easily.”

“Sensuality often hastens the "Growth of Love" so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up.”

“Identity is not an object; it is a process with addresses for all the different directions and dimensions in which it moves, and so it cannot so easily be fixed with a single number.”