Human love, human trust, are always perilous, because they break down. The greater the love, the greater the trust, and the greater the peril, the greater the disaster. Because to place absolute trust on another human being is in itself a disaster, both ways, since each human being is a ship that must sail its own course, even if it go in company with another ship.... And yet, love is the greatest thing between human beings.

One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on.

I am in love - and, my God, it is the greatest thing that can happen to a man. I tell you, find a woman you can fall in love with. Do it. Let yourself fall in love. If you have not done so already, you are wasting your life.

The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.

Eat and carouse with Bacchus, or munch dry bread with Jesus, but don't sit down without one of the gods.

I never knew how soothing trees are-many trees and patches of open sunlight, and tree presences; it is almost like having another being.

The more I see of democracy the more I dislike it. It just brings everything down to the mere vulgar level of wages and prices, electric light and water closets, and nothing else.