Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart. For we can win a man's heart one day and lose it the next. But when we break a proud spirit we achieve something that is final and absolute.

...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.

Marriage has for women many equivalents of joining a mass movement. It offers them a new purpose in life, a new future and a new identity (a new name). The boredom of spinsters and of women who can no longer find joy and fulfillment in marriage stems from an awareness of a barren, spoiled life. By embracing a holy cause and dedicating their energies and substance to its advancement, they find a new life full of purpose and meaning.

To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.

With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.

The greatest weariness comes from work not done.

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.