When work is not going well, it's useful to remember that our identities stretch beyond what is on the business card, that we were people long before we became workers - and will continue to be human once we have put our tools down forever.

There is a devilishly direct relationship between the significance of an idea and how nervous we become at the prospect of having to think about it.

People who readily accept the need for a gym will resist that their personalities might need some work too.

We may not agree with what religions are trying to teach us, but we can admire the institutional way in which they're doing it.

Differ though we might with Christianity's view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis, which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one-that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life.

Envy: a confused, tangled guide to one's own ambitions.

The only way to be happy is to realise how much depends on how you look at things