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

The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse.

I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon 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.

The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind.

Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.

The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we call our common sense, our practical point of view. Actually, these are names for an all-absorbing familiarity with things as they are. . . . Thus it happens that when the times become unhinged, it is the practical people who are caught unaware . . . still clinging to things that no longer exist.