Our envy of others devours us most of all.

A great writer is, so to speak, a secret government in his country

The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

What is an optimist? The man who says, "It's worse everywhere else. We're better off than the rest of the world. We've been lucky." He is happy with things as they are and he doesn't torment himself. What is a pessimist? The man who says, "Things are fine everywhere but here. Everyone else is better off than we are. We're the only ones who've had a bad break." He torments himself continually.

My wish for you... is that your skeptic-eclectic brain be flooded with the light of truth.

Submissiveness to fate, the total abdication of your own will in the shaping of your life, the recognition that it was impossible to guess the best and the worst ahead of time but that it was easy to take a step you would reproach yourself for-all this freed the prisoner from any bondage, made him calmer, and even ennobled him.

We never know beforehand how new posts or new work will change us.