To reach perfection, we must all pass, one by one, through the death of self-effacement.
Like the bee, we distill poison from honey for our self-defense – what happens to the bee if it uses its sting is well known.
Humility before the flower at the timber line is the gate which gives access to the path up the open fell.
Beneath the hush a whisper from long ago, promising peace of mind and a burden shared. No peace which is not peace for all, no rest until all has been fulfilled.
Perhaps a great love is never returned. Had it been given warmth and shelter by its counterpart in the Other, perhaps it would have been hindered from ever growing to maturity. It “gives” us nothing. But in its world of loneliness it leads us up to the summits with wide vistas – of great insights.
The UN wasn’t created to take mankind into paradise, but rather, to save humanity from hell.
It is easy to be nice, even to an enemy – from lack of character.
The more faithfully you listen to the voices within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside.
The myths have always condemned those who ‘looked back.’ Condemned them, whatever the paradise may have been which they were leaving. Hence this shadow over each departure from your decision.
I never discuss discussions.
Only he deserves power who every day justifies it.
Maturity – among other things, the unclouded happiness of the child at play, who takes it for granted that he is at one with his play-mates.
Praise those of your critics for whom nothing is up to standard.
If even dying is to be made a social function, then, grant me the favor of sneaking out on tiptoe without disturbing the party.
Our work for peace must begin within the private world of each of us.
Is life so wretched? Isn’t it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up.
A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles a man to assume responsibility.
The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.
Fatigue dulls the pain, but awakes enticing thoughts of death. So! that is the way in which you are tempted to overcome your loneliness – by making the ultimate escape from life. – No! It may be that death is to be your ultimate gift to life: it must not be an act of treachery against it.
At some moment I did answer “Yes” to someone or something. And from that hour on I was certain that existence is meaningful.
In a dream I walked with God through the deep places of creation; past walls that receded and gates that opened through hall after hall of silence, darkness and refreshment – the dwelling place of souls acquainted with light and warmth – until, around me, was an infinity into which we all flowed together and lived anew, like the rings made by raindrops falling upon wide expanses of calm dark waters.