To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for. It is only when we see ourselves as actors in a staged (and therefore unreal) performance that death loses its frightfulness and finality and becomes an act of make-believe and a theatrical gesture. It is one of the main tasks of a real leader to mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in his followers the illusion that they are participating in a grandiose spectacle, a solemn or lighthearted dramatic performance.

In human affairs every solution serves only to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. There are no final solutions.

Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.

It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.

One word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made perservereingly during fifty-five years; that word is failure

Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor.

A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.