There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished...Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing.

It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate.

The conservatism of a religion - it's orthodoxy - is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap.

Anger is a prelude to courage.

We are made kind by being kind.

To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for. It is only when we see ourselves as actors in a staged (and therefore unreal) performance that death loses its frightfulness and finality and becomes an act of make-believe and a theatrical gesture. It is one of the main tasks of a real leader to mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in his followers the illusion that they are participating in a grandiose spectacle, a solemn or lighthearted dramatic performance.

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.