When we are in competition with ourselves, and match our todays against our yesterdays, we derive encouragement from past misfortunes and blemishes. Moreover, the competition with ourselves leaves unimpaired our benevolence toward our fellow men.

A sublime religion inevitably generates a strong feeling of guilt. There is an unavoidable contrast between loftiness of profession and imperfection of practice. And, as one would expect, the feeling of guilt promotes hate and brazenness. Thus it seems that the more sublime the faith the more virulent the hatred it breeds.

The purpose of philosophers is to show people what is right under their noses.

A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.

It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a "have" type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a "have not" type of self.

A compilation of what outstanding people said or wrote at the age of 20 would make a collection of asinine pronouncements.