Our vanity makes us exaggerate the importance of human life; the individual is nothing; Nature cares only for the species.

Compared with that of Taoists and Far Eastern Buddhists, the Christian attitude toward Nature has been curiously insensitive and often downright domineering and violent. Taking their cue from an unfortunate remark in Genesis, Catholic moralists have regarded animals as mere things which men do right to regard for their own ends. . . .

It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.'

The consistent thinker, the consistently moral man, is either a walking mummy or else, if he has not succeeded in stifling all his vitality, a fanatical monomaniac.

Man must learn to simplify, but not to the point of falsification.

Too much consistency is as bad for the mind as for the body.

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm.