According to Montaigne, it was the oppressive notion that we had complete mental control over our bodies, and the horror of departing from this portrait of normality, that had left the man unable to perform sexually.
Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to regret the inanity of what we say, and the missed opportunity of what we do not.
Rather than getting more spoilt with age, as difficulties pile up, epiphanies of gratitude abound.
The universe is large and we are tiny, without the need for further religious superstructure. One can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit.
Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they’re not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone; they’re for all of us.
We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they’re doing it.
The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.
Dreams reveal we never quite get ‘over’ anything: it’s all still in there somewhere.
Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all we might be.
Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.
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.
The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where “ordinary” life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.
Cynics are – beneath it all – only idealists with awkwardly high standards.
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.
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.