Age is not measured by years. Nature does not equally distribute energy. Some people are born old and tired while others are going strong at seventy. - Dorothy Thompson

As far as I can see, I really was put out of Germany for the crime of blasphemy. [...] My offense was to think that Hitler is just an ordinary man, after all. This is a crime against the reigning cult in Germany, which says that Mr. Hitler is a Messiah sent by God to save the German people — an old Jewish idea. To question this mystic mission is so heinous that, if you are German you can be sent to jail. I, fortunately, am an American, so I merely was sent to Paris. Worse things can happen to one.

It is true that the techniques of war are constantly "improved" as the genius of an age of invention is put in the service of the war machine. But that is not what is most disturbing. What is revolutionary is that the minds of men, women and children are being deliberately trained, directed, distorted, by every conceivable instrument of education and propaganda, to make them tolerant of war, receptive of war, prepared for war, lovers of war. The greatest menace in the world is not poison gas. There are gas masks against that. The menace is poisoned words, poisoned ideas.

Above all, he appeals to the invisible realities, to the emotions, to faith rather than reason. His speeches are full of talk about Honor, Folk, Fatherland, Loyalty, Family, Sacrifice, Revenge. ‘He begins,’ says a writer who has often heard him, ‘in a gentle tenor voice. It is usually fifteen minutes before the miracle happens. Then it comes. Literally, it seems. ‘the spirit enters into him.’ He is possessed. Phrases come to his lips with are artistically perfect.