Commonly, people believe that defeat is characterized by a general bustle and a feverish rush. Bustle and rush are the signs of victory, not of defeat. Victory is a thing of action. It is a house in the act of being built. Every participant in victory sweats and puffs, carrying the stones for the building of the house. But defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom. And above all of futility.

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed.

I have always learned to distinguish the important from the urgent.

The strong are strengthened by reverses; the trouble is that the true meaning of events scores next to nothing in the match we play with men. Appearances decide our gains or losses and the points are trumpery. And a mere semblance of defeat may hopelessly checkmate us.

Freedom and constraint are two aspects of the same necessity, the necessity of being the man you are and not another. You are free to be that man, but not another.

One day, I watched the sun setting forty-four times......You know...when one is so terribly sad, one loves sunsets.