The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning - in other words, of absurdity - the more energetically meaning is sought.

It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.

Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it.

Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it.

Nothing is more powerful than individuals acting out of their own conscience.

Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

Without commonly shared and widely entrenched moral values and obligations, neither the law, nor democratic government, nor even the market economy will function properly.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

This is a confusing and uncertain period, when a thousand wise words can go completely unnoticed, and one thoughtless word can provoke an utterly nonsensical furor.

We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality.

There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.

If you shouldn’t blame yourself for minor things you did or didn’t do when someone dies, how can you start giving yourself credit for tiny things you did when something really good happens?

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

Hell no. When I die I want to be sick.

From the viewpoint of analytic psychology, the theatre, aside from any aesthetic value, may be considered as an institution for the treatment of the mass complex.

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

I should like to be famous and unknown.

Faith gives the assurance that our lives and our history have a moral design.

Hatred makes us all ugly.

If you are courageous enough to be still, you are a step closer to becoming empowered.

So let me end with the wish that you find the same kind of happyiness, and laughter, and love, that I have found, and that you have the wisdon to make them last.