The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.

Erotic or sexual love can truly be love if it is not selfishly sexual or lustful.

When we ask for love, we don't ask others to be fair to us-but rather to care for us, to be considerate of us. There is a world of difference here between demanding justice... and begging or pleading for love.

Not to engage in this pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men.

A good book deserves an active reading. The activity of reading does not stop with the work of understanding what a book says. It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging. The undemanding reader fails to satisfy this requirement, probably even more than he fails to analyze and interpret. He not only makes no effort to understand; he also dismisses a book simply by putting it aside and forgetting it. Worse than faintly praising it, he damns it by giving it no critical consideration whatever.

Men value things in three ways: as useful, as pleasant or sources of pleasure, and as excellent, or as intrinsically admirable or honorable.

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.