America is still the best country for the common man -- white or black ... if he can't make it here he won't make it anywhere else.

The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

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

The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.

Unpredictability, too, can become monotonous.

A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.

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