We start with gifts. Merit comes from what we make of them.

Fear is a noose that binds until it strangles.

If you have heard a Jewish cantor sing, if he has touched you and made your own sorrow seem trivial when compared with his, you will know my feeling when I follow the curves of her profile, like mobile rivers, to their common delta.

Most novices picture themselves as masters - and are content with the picture. This is why there are so few masters.

There is no such thing as happiness. Life bends joy and pain, beauty and ugliness, in such a way that no one may isolate them. No one should want to. Perfect joy, or perfect pain, with no contrasting element to define them, would mean a monotony of consciousness, would mean death

People mistake their limitations for high standards.

Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily.