We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.

There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.

The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.

A person's creative ability decreases in direct proportion to the degree to which he takes himself seriously.

Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.

The education explosion is producing a vast number of people who want to live significant, important lives but lack the ability to satisfy this craving for importance by individual achievement. The country is being swamped with nobodies who want to be somebodies.