If you never ask yourself any questions about the meaning of a passage, you cannot expect the book to give you any insight you do not already possess.

If you ask a living teacher a question, he will probably answer you. If you are puzzled by what he says, you can save yourself the trouble of thinking by asking him what he means. If, however, you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself. In this respect a book is like nature or the world. When you question it, it answers you only to the extent that you do the work of thinking an analysis yourself.

Habits are formed by the repetition of particular acts. They are strengthened by an increase in the number of repeated acts. Habits are also weakened or broken, and contrary habits are formed by the repetition of contrary acts.

Think how different human societies would be if they were based on love rather than justice. But no such societies have ever existed on earth.

You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.

Sin is not only manifested in certain acts that are forbidden by divine command. Sin also appears in attitudes and dispositions and feelings. Lust and hate are sins as well as adultery and murder. And, in the traditional Christian view, despair and chronic boredom - unaccompanied by any vicious act - are serious sins. They are expressions of man's separation from God, as the ultimate good, meaning, and end of human existence.

More consequences for thought and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.