It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.

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

...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves.

It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness. The remarkable thing is that the cessation of the inner dialogue marks also the end of our concern with the world around us. It is as if we noted the world and think about it only when we have to report it to ourselves.

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

To believe that if we could have but this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness.