Why do so many people yearn for an eternal life when they don’t even know what to do with themselves in this brief one?
Being yourself is not remaining where you are, or being satisfied with what you are. It is the point of departure.
Time is love, above all else. It is the most precious commodity in the world and should be lavished on those we care most about.
Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.
Marriages we regard as the happiest are those in which each of the partners believes he or she got the best of it.
Why are we willing to accept a new mathematical formula we don’t understand as the product of a brilliant mind, while rejecting a new art form we don’t understand as the product of a deranged mind?
The profound immoralities of our time are cruelty, indifference, injustice and the use of others as means rather than ends in themselves.
When we inform, we lead from strength; when we communicate, we lead from weakness – and it is precisely this confession of mortality that engages the ears, heads and hearts of those we want to enlist as allies in a common cause.
Western civilization has not yet learned the lesson that the energy we expend in ‘getting things done’ is less important than the moral strength it takes to decide what is worth doing and what is right to do.
The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught.
Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify.
Isolation always perverts; when a man lives only among his own sort, he soon begins to believe that his sort are the best sort. This attitude breeds both the arrogance of the conservative and the bitterness of the radical.
Sincerity that thinks it is the sole possessor of the truth is a deadlier sin than hypocrisy, which knows better.
Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a “necessary evil”, it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
Just about the only interruption we don’t object to is applause.
Real loneliness consists not in being alone, but in being with the wrong person, in the suffocating darkness of a room in which no deep communication is possible.
Between the semi-educated, who offer simplistic answers to complex questions, and the overeducated, who offer complicated answers to simple questions, it is a wonder that any questions get satisfactorily answered at all.
Take away grievances from some people and you remove their reasons for living; most of us are nourished by hope, but a considerable minority get psychic nutrition from their resentments, and would waste away purposelessly without them.
We evaluate others with a Godlike justice, but we want them to evaluate us with a Godlike compassion.
Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.