Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.

The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.

It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.

Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance.

The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow - by the tilt of the social landscape.

It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites-opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity-where energies flow smoothly in one direction-there will be much doing but no music.

To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.