I am happy that I am a unique individual, endowed with unique talents and abilities. I never spend my precious time and energy comparing my talents with those of others.

Every man or woman is a potential poet or artist. Everyone has the capacity to bring to their work the dignity, purposefulness, and presence of the artist.

be present, be concentrated, and be strong.

Society has always been the free man's greatest enemy. And the free man has been society's greatest friend. How did society treat Jesus, Socrates, Galileo, or Martin Luther King? Yet look what they have left behind.

The life spent in doing what you love is a different life indeed from putting yourself out for hire to the highest bidder. The only way you can say it makes no difference is to say life makes no difference.

As Colin Wilson has written, "modern civilisation, with its mechanised rigidity is producing more outsiders than ever before-people who are too intelligent to do some repetitive job, but not intelligent enough to make their own terms with society." Those "intelligent enough" to make their own terms with society are what we will later refer to as artists of life. The outsider views himself as a product of a culture he rejects-the artist views himself as a culture-builder.

Here we must distinguish between society and culture. A society can be interested in a man or woman only as a political or economic entity; a culture is interested in more. Culture means literally "to cultivate" or "to care for." Cultures care for their peoples as natural, spiritual beings and not simply as workers or consumers.