In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.

I am comforted by life's stability, by earth's unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.

Chinese are wise in comprehending without many words what is inevitable and inescapable and therefore only to be borne.

Only the brave should teach....Teaching is a vocation. It is as sacred as priesthood; as innate a desire, as inescapable as the genius which compels a great artist. If he has not the concern for humanity, the love of living creatures, the vision of the priest and the artist, he must not teach.

Purposeless activity may be a phase of death.

Our bodies can be mobilized by law and police and men with guns, if necessary-but where shall we find that which will make us believe in what we must do, so that we can fight through to victory?

music is not technique and melody, but the meaning of life itself, infinitely sorrowful and unbearably beautiful.