The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

I have a wish. It as a fear as well – that in my end will be my beginning.

Smiling makes me feel weak and not in control and not powerful and small.

Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

It’s not morbid to talk about death. Most people don’t worry about death, they worry about a bad death.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

There is so much that must be done in a civilized barbarism like war.

Regardless of what society says, we can’t go on much longer in the sea of immorality without judgment coming.

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satisfied.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we’re not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.

And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet, than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we – we own this country. We – we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.

Politics have no relation to morals.

I love the name of honor, more than I fear death.

Paranoia is just another word for ignorance.

The society in ‚The Handmaid’s Tale‘ is a throwback to the early Puritans whom I studied extensively at Harvard under Perry Miller, to whom the book is dedicated.

A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.

Death is a fearful thing.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

Propaganda is amazing. People can be led to believe anything.

My age is very insignificant to me. I don’t think about it, but the world does. The world likes young people in general.

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country – we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me. I want to stay hopeful, even though I get scared about why we’re even alive at all.

Poverty is the mother of crime.

Death obsesses me, yes it does. I can’t really understand why it doesn’t obsess everyone – I think it does really, I’m just a little more out about it.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

While victimhood in America is exalted, I don’t think our veterans should join those ranks.

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to rule.

I have trust issues with allowing other individuals to know my innermost secrets for fear of how I may be viewed. Everyone has this.

We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid.

As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it.

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.

If you want to deal with an epidemic – crime or health – the smartest and most effective and cheapest way to deal with it is prevention first.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.

Fear is a spirit that produces a feeling.

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.

The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.

The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.