A world where a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily.

Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.

The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.

as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.

Art was the very antithesis of crass moralism.

The quickest way to stop noticing something, may be to buy it—just as the quickest way to stop appreciating someone may be to marry him or her.

A sharp decline in actual deprivation may, paradoxically, have been accompanied by an ongoing and even escalating sense of fear of deprivation.

Judged against eternity, how little of what agitates us makes any difference.

Listen to people from your heart, as if your life depended on it, and you will find that in turn people will listen to you with all of theirs.

Indeed, infatuation thrives on image (while love thrives on knowledge).

The witch hunter could not date the witch.

Praises of the unworthy are felt by ardent minds as robberies of the deserving.

As long as you can start you are all right. The juice will come.

Those blue eyes that had stopped my heart the first time she looked at me found me in the crowd." -Cage

Our lives pass from us like the wind, and why Should wise men grieve to know that they must die? The Judas blossom fades, the lovely face Of light is dimmed, and darkness takes its place.

There's always world enough and time.

Leadership is never given on a silver platter, one has to earn it.

Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.