Temperament is fixed, set. The skull, followed by the temperament: the two hardest parts of the body. Follow your temperament. It is not a philosophy, It is a rule, like the Rule of St Benedict.

We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

If you were blind you would hardly have fallen in love in the first place. But now, do you truly wish to see the beloved in the cold clarity of the visual apparatus? It may be in your better interest to throw a veil over the gaze, so as to keep her alive in her archetypal, goddesslike form.

Denunciations of the manipulativeness of advertisers can unfortunately all too easily be turned on their heads into denunciations of the gullibility of consumers. Both are forms of scapegoating, neither accomplishes anything.

We are not by nature cruel.

Strictly speaking, my interest is not in legal rights for animals but in a change of heart towards animals.

The mode of consciousness of nonhuman species is quite different from human consciousness.