At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the plashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons.

When goals go, meaning goes. When meaning goes, purpose goes. When purpose goes, life goes dead on our hands.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

There are all too many who, on account of their notorious ineptitude, thrive better in a rationalist system than in freedom. Freedom is one of those difficult things.

Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naively suppose that people are as we imagine them to be.

I know that previously I would not have dared to express myself so explicitly about so uncertain a matter. I can take this risk because I am now in my eighth decade, and the changing opinions of men scarcely impress me any more; the thoughts of the old masters are of greater value to me than the philosophical prejudices of the Western mind.

The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.