Has it ever occurred to you that friendship, at best, is a rather doubtful asset? I don't want friends. I shall have worshippers a...nd followers. People who will obey me because they recognize my greatness. Those who are loyal will be rewarded, and the others--destroyed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The educational system in large countries will always be utterly mediocre, for the same reason that the cooking in large kitchens ...is mediocre at best.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Only he who can view his own past as an abortion sprung from compulsion and need can use it to full advantage in the present. For ...what one has lived is at best comparable to a beautiful statue which has had all its limbs knocked off in transit, and now yields nothing but the precious block out of which the image of one's future must be hewn.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Two archetypes pervade Western thinking on the subject of how reality is best apprehended, archetypes that have their ultimate ori...gin in Plato and Aristotle. For Plato sense data were at best a distraction from knowledge, which was the province of unaided reason. For Aristotle, knowledge consisted in generalizations, but these were derived in the first instance from information gathered from the outside world. These two models of human thinking, termed rationalism and empiricism, respectively, formed the major intellectual legacy of the West down to Descartes and Bacon, who represented, in the seventeenth century, the twin poles of epistemology.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Punishment may make us obey the orders we are given, but at best it will only teach an obedience to authority, not a self-control ...which enhances our self-respect.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The works of women are symbolical. We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight,... Producing what? A pair of slippers, sir, To put on when you're weary or a stool To stumble over and vex you ... "curse that stool!" Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean And sleep, and dream of something we are not, But would be for your sake. Alas, alas! This hurts most, this ... that, after all, we are paid The worth of our work, perhaps.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Reviews and magazines are at best ephemeral & superficial reading. Who thinks of the grand article of last year in any given revie...w?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The reading public is intellectually adolescent at best, and it is obvious that what is called "significant literature" will only ...be sold to this public by exactly the same methods as are used to sell it toothpaste, cathartics and automobiles.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The camera has an interest in turning history into spectacle, but none in reversing the process. At best, the picture leaves a vag...ue blur in the observer's mind; strong enough to send him into battle perhaps, but not to have him understand why he is going.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »