States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.

Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.

All over the place, from popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.