Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self.
Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love.
The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.
A dream is a microscope through which we look at the hidden occurrences in our soul.
Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.
Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.
Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.
Free man is by necessity insecure, thinking man by necessity uncertain.
Integrity simply means not violating one’s own identity.
Mother’s love is bliss, is peace, it need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. If it is there, it is like a blessing; if it is not there it is as if all the beauty had gone out of life.
An illusion shared by everyone becomes a reality.
Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair.
Love is hot a higher power which descends upon mn nor a duty which is imposed upon him; it is his own power by which he relates himself to the world and makes it truly his.
Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.
If an individual is able to love productively, he loves himself, too; if he can love only others, he cannot love at all.
I think if you ask people what their concept of heaven is, they would say, if they are honest, that it is a big department store, with new things every week – all the money to buy them, and maybe a little more than the neighbours.
If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue – and not a vice – to love myself, since I am a human being too.
Beyond the element of giving, the active characteristic of love becomes evident in the fact that it always implies certain basic elements, common to all forms of love. These are care, responsability, respect and knowledge.
The kind of relatedness to the world may be noble or trivial, but even being related to the basest kind of pattern is immensely preferable to being alone.
Men are born equal but they are also born different.