There is also this benefit in brag: that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.

It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.

Courage is a kind of salvation.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

To one extent, if you've seen one city slum, you've seen them all.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.

I can't help thinking that there are only one or two ways of being brought into this world, but there are so many fucked-up ways of leaving it.

Don't own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire.

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we're frantic, life will be frantic. If we're peaceful, life will be peaceful. And so our goal in any situation becomes inner peace.

Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life.

Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.

A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.

Just as modern motorways have no room for ox-carts or wandering pedestrians, so modern society has little place for lives and ways that are too eccentric.

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

The knowledge of oneself will preserve that person from vanity.

Not all things are to be discovered; many are better concealed.

No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.