Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.

The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.

It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.

A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.

Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.

There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.

We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.

Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.

It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words.

Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.

Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.

With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.

A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.

One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action.

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

The greatest weariness comes from work not done.

Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.

There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.

Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.