Every intellectual effort sets us apart from the commonplace, and leads us by hidden and difficult paths to secluded spots where we find ourselves amid unaccustomed thoughts.

Rancor is an outpouring of a feeling of inferiority.

We need to study the whole of history, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.

The type of human being we prefer reveals the contours of our heart.

Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt.

Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.

Life is a series of collisions with the future.

I am I plus my surroundings; and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself.

An 'unemployed' existence is a worse negation of life than death itself.

To wonder is to begin to understand.

We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.

The more you can dream, the more you can do.

Life is not a multiple choice test, it's an open-book essay exam.

The compromise will always be more expensive than either of the suggestions it is compromising.

If wisdom in government eludes us, perhaps courage could substitute-the moral courage to terminate mistakes.

I try not to question the good things.

It is near thirty years since He made it sure; and since that time, though there has fallen out much sin, yet I was never out of an assurance of mine interest, nor long out of sight of His presence.

The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void.

Theater makes working in movies or TV seem like a cake-walk.

It doesn't matter if you win or lose, until you lose.

Cynics who say power is all that counts in politics forget that power without ideas is just improvisation.