The difficulty for most of us in the modern world is that the old-fashioned idea of God has become incredible or implausible.

The problem is to overcome the ingrained disbelief in the power of winning nature by love, in the gentle (ju) way (do) of turning with the skid, of controlling ourselves by cooperating with ourselves.

And it came to pass that in the hands of the ignorant, the words of the Bible were used to beat plowshares into swords

Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.

We identify in our exerience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

The Universe is the game of the self, which plays hide and seek forever and ever.

Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture. Reasonable - that is, human - men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life.