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

Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.

Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.

Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end results of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.

To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief from the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.

It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.