It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.

The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.

You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.

Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard.

Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or rather the rejection of the self. Dedication in the obverse side of self-rejection. Man alone is a religious animal because, as Montaigne points out, it is a malady confined to man, and not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves.

Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.