The character truest to itself becomes eccentric rather than immovably centered, as Emerson defined the noble character of the hero. At the edge, the certainty of borders gives way. We are more subject to invasions, less able to mobilize defenses, less sure of who we really are, even as we may be perceived by others as a person of character. The dislocation of self from center to indefinite edge merges us more with the world, so that we can feel blest by everything.

It's very hard to know what wisdom is

I think we're miserable partly because we have only one god, and that's economics.

Economics is a slave-driver. No one has free time; no one has any leisure.

It's better to go into the world half-cocked than not to go into the world at all.

It is impossible to see the angel unless you first have a notion of it.

The capacity for people to kid themselves is huge. Living on illusions or delusions, and the re-establishing of these illusions or delusions requires a big effort to keep them from being seen through. But a very old idea is at work behind our current state of affairs: enantiodromia, or the Greek notion of things turning into their opposite.