The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.

People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.

We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.

Animals often strike us as passionate machines.

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.

To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

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.