If a child is "free of neurotic symptoms" but values his freedom from fear so highly that he will never in his lifetime risk himse...lf for an idea or a principle, then this mental health does not serve human welfare. If he is "secure" but never aspires to anything but personal security, then this security cannot be valued in itself. If he is "well adjusted to the group" but secures his adjustment through uncritical acceptance of and compliance with the ideas of others, then this adjustment does not serve a democratic society. if he "adjusts well in school" but furnishes his mind with commonplace ideas and facts...then what civilization can value the "adjustment" of this child?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The only inequalities that matter begin in the mind. It is not income levels but differences in mental equipment that keep people ...apart, breed feelings of inferiority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The conflict between science and religion is in reality a misunderstanding of both. Scientific materialism has merely introduced a... new hypostasis, and that is an intellectual sin. It has given another name to the supreme principle of reality and has assumed that this created a new thing and destroyed an old thing. Whether you call the principle of existence "God," "matter," "energy," or anything else you like, you have created nothing; you have merely changed a symbol. The materialist is a metaphysician malgré lui. Faith, on the other hand, tries to retain a primitive mental condition on merely sentimental grounds. It is unwilling to give up the primitive, childlike relationship to mind-created and hypostatized figures; it wants to go on enjoying the security and confidence of a world still presided over by powerful, responsible, and kindly parents.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Even if someone knew the entire physical history of the world, and every mental event were identical with a physical, it would not... follow that he could predict or explain a single mental event (so described, of course).LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of rele...ase.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow ol...d. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on the farms of America; for better and cheaper transp...ortation; for low interest rates; for sounder home financing; for better banking; for the regulation of security issues; for reciprocal trade among nations and for the wiping out of slums. And my friends, for all of these we have only begun to fight.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our security depends on the Allied Powers winning against aggressors. The Axis Powers intend to destroy democracy, it is anathema ...to them. We cannot provide that aid if the public are against it; therefore, it is our responsibility to persuade the public that aid to the victims of aggression is aid to American security. I expect the members of my administration to take every opportunity to speak to this issue wherever they are invited to address public forums in the weeks ahead.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »