It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others.

For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.

The autonomous individual, striving to realize himself and prove his worth, has created all that is great in literature, art, music, science and technology. The autonomous individual, also, when he can neither realize himself nor justify his existence by his own efforts, is a breeding call of frustration, and the seed of the convulsions which shake our world to its foundations.

Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.

Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.

There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.