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

What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine: it must be "contrary to nature, to common sense and to pleasure.

However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable.

Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.

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

The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.

It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.