The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.

A plant needs roots in order to grow. With man it is the other way around: only when he grows does he have roots and feels at home in the world.

A person's creative ability decreases in direct proportion to the degree to which he takes himself seriously.

There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.

Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create something in the image of nature is to create a machine, and it was by learning the inner working of nature that man became a builder of machines.

To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.

An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity--the endless flow of life and death--than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous.