The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.

To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain enormously in confidence before he could conceive an all-powerful God who obeys his own laws.

Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent.

The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we call our common sense, our practical point of view. Actually, these are names for an all-absorbing familiarity with things as they are. . . . Thus it happens that when the times become unhinged, it is the practical people who are caught unaware . . . still clinging to things that no longer exist.

Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.