The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome.

We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it.

To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.

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 man's worth is what he is divided by what he thinks he is.

We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.