Must being in love always mean being in pain?
We are sensitized by the books we read. And the more books we read, and the deeper their lessons sink into us, the more pairs of glasses we have. And those glasses enable us to see things we would have otherwise missed.
A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one’s ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humanity.
The study of maps and the perusal of travel books aroused in me a secret fascination that was at times almost irresistible.
A great writer picks up on those things that matter. It’s almost like their radar is attuned to the most significant moments.
It would scarcely be acceptable, for example, to ask in the course of an ordinary conversation what our society holds to be the purpose of work.
Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.
How generous was it to offer gifts to people one knew would never accept them?
A lump rises in our throat at the sight of beauty from an implicit knowledge that the happiness it hints at is the exception.
Although I don’t believe in God, Bach’s music shows me what a love of God must feel like.
Not everyone is worth listening to.
Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others – because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodness, and sanity.
The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.
The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not – as we flatteringly think – how lazy they are, but how hard they work.
One of love’s greatest drawbacks is that, for a while at least, it is in danger of making us happy.
In the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation.
Happiness may be difficult to obtain. The obstacles are not primarily financial.
Why, then, if expensive things cannot bring us remarkable joy, are we so powerfully drawn to them?
A simple problem of arithmetic: there are far more ambitions than there are grand destinies available.