Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.

... reason accepts no commandments.

If you want to know the one reason that's taking me back, I'll tell you: I cannot bring myself to abandon to destruction all the greatness of the world, all that which was mine and yours, which was made by us and is still ours by right - because I cannot believe that men refuse to see, that they can remain blind and deaf to us forever, when the truth is ours and their lives depend on accepting it.

The evasion of responsibility is the major cause of most peoples frustrations and defeats.

I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.

But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself.

I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence.