We are not what happened to us, we are what we wish to become.

I think it is better for all people to live on, to look forward to the next stage (after death), as if he had to spend centuries, then he lives properly... looking forward to the great adventure ahead, then he lives!

Everything good is costly, and the development of personality is one of the most costly of all things. It is a matter of saying yes to oneself, of taking oneself as the most serious of tasks, of being conscious of everything one does, and keeping it constantly before one's eyes in all its dubious aspects.

The afternoon of a human life must have a significance of its own, and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life's morning.

Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.

Sometimes a tree tells you more than can be read in books.

The word 'happiness' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced and contrasted and compared to sadness. In comparing how an experience could have been worse we develop gratitude and happiness, while if we compare it how it could have been better we develop bitterness and sadness.