Because most people are not sufficiently employed in themselves, they run about loose, hungering for employment, and satisfy themselves in various supererogatory occupations. The easiest of these occupations, which have all to do with making things already made, is the making of people: it is called the art of friendship.

The problem of good and evil is not the problem of good and evil, but only the problem of evil. In opposition to good there are evil characters, but there are no good characters in opposition to evil. Evil is arguable, but good is not. Therefore the Devil always wins the argument.

To tell one comprehensive story of how it has happened that what is is, one which shall hold true, come what may, now-after - a story that whatever comes shall perfectly continue or confirm: such is the ideal motive of religions.

Truth rings no bells.

A religion addresses the longing in us to have that said from which we can go on to speak of next and next things rightly, in their immediate time - the telling of what came first and before done forever.

If what you write is true, it will not be so because of what you are as a writer but because of what you are as a being. There can be no literary equivalent to truth.

People get wisdom from thinking, not from learning.