Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.

They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.

A peculiar side of credulity is that it is often joined with a proneness to imposture. The association of believing and lying is not characteristic solely of children. They inability or unwillingness to see things as they are promotes both gullibility and charlatanism.

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

Unpredictability, too, can become monotonous.

Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.

The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious.