Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.

It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.

Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.

...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves.

When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.

However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable.

When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest people in the world.