It is a strange thing that both the injurer and the injured, the sinner and he who is sinned against, should find in the mass movement an escape from a blemished life.

What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine: it must be "contrary to nature, to common sense and to pleasure.

In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes- courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on - can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion, even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

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

There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.

It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.

EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.