Someone who does not write books, who thinks a lot, and who lives in unsatisfying society will usually be a good letter- writer.

When there is a choice about it, a great sacrifice is preferable to a small sacrifice, because we compensate ourselves for a greatone with self-admiration, which is not possible with a small one.

The greatest giver of alms is cowardice.

When our brain feels too weak to deal with our opponent's objections, our heart answers by casting suspicion on their underlying motives.

And this do I call immaculate perception of all things: to want nothing else from them, but to be allowed to lie before them as a mirror with a hundred facets.

Only great pain is, as the teacher of great suspicion, the ultimate liberator of the spirit...I doubt whether such pain improves us-but I do know it deepens us.

Narrow souls I cannot abide; There's almost no good or evil inside