It struck me that the popularity of Christmas is a matter of web-like consciousness. Childhood conditions us to relax and expand at Christmas, to forget petty worries and irritations and think in terms of universal peace. And so Christmas is the nearest to mystical experience that most human beings ever approach, with its memories of Dickens and Irving's Bracebridge Hall.

The self-surmounter can never put up with the man who has ceased to be dissatisfied with himself.

Imagination should be used, not to escape reality but to create it.

A symphony is a stage play with the parts written for instruments instead of for actors.

It was Rousseau who was largely responsible for the problem by giving currency to the idea that freedom can exist without responsibility and discipline.

The complex develops out of the simple.

If you asked me what is the basis of all my work, it's the feeling there's something basically wrong with human beings.