We are born into this world unarmed - our mind is our only weapon.

Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.

Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others.

When a man feels fear without reason, you call him to the attention of a psychiatrist; you are not so careful to protect the meaning, the nature and the dignity of love.

Indiscriminate tolerance and indiscriminate condemnation are not two opposites: they are two variants of the same evasion.

Because, you see, God - whatever anyone chooses to call God - is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.

The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral.