However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.

We see through others only when we see through ourselves.

Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance.

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul.

A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life