The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.

The physician knows that his little black bag can carry him only so far and that the body's own healing system is the main resource.

Drugs are not always necessary. Belief in recovery always is.

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

Humanity today is not safe in the presence of humanity. The old cannibalism has given way to anonymous action in which the killer and the killed do not know each other, and in which,indeed, the very fact of mass death has the effect of making mass killing less reprehensible than the death of a single individual. In short, we have evolved in every respect except our ability to protect ourselves against human intelligence. Our knowledge is vast but does not embrace the workings of peace.

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.

The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple where literary incense must be burned or where one's one devotion to the bound book is expressed in ritual. A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas - a place where history comes to life.