Good heredity and environment are necessary. You cannot compare the child of a savage with the child of a civilized person.

If I do not understand myself, the whole complexity of myself, I have no basis for thinking.

After all you grow by experience. But while your son is young, you should try to set before him his ultimate goal.

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.

Freedom from something is not freedom.

All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.

If you would listen, sir, in the sense of being aware of your conflicts and contradictions without forcing them into any particular pattern of thought, perhaps they might altogether cease.