The evolution of the brain not only overshot the needs of prehistoric man, it is the only example of evolution providing a species with an organ which it does not know how to use.

I am not sure whether ethical absolutes exist. But I am sure that we have to act as if they existed or civilization perishes.

Conscious and unconscious experiences do not belong to different compartments of the mind; they form a continuous scale of gradations, of degrees of awareness.

War is a ritual, a deadly ritual, not the result of aggressive self-assertion, but of self-transcending identification. Without loyalty to tribe, church, flag or ideal, there would be no wars.

The creative act does not create something out of nothing; it uncovers, selects, reshuffles, combines, synthesizes already existing facts, ideas, faculties, and skills.

To want to meet an author because you like his books is as ridiculous as wanting to meet the goose because you like pate de foie gras.

...the temptation, which consisted of a single word written on the cemetary of the defeated: Sleep.