Humanity is not a gift of nature, it is a spiritual achievement to be earned.

The gulls who scorn perfection for the sake of travel go nowhere, slowly. Those who put aside travel for the sake of perfection go anywhere, instantly.

If you're always looking at someone else, trying to imitate them, how can your natural gifts ever emerge?

Languages are fluffy big pillows stuffed between nations - what others say is muffled and nearly lost in them, and when we speak their grammar we get feathers in our mouth. It's worth it. What pleasure to phrase an idea, even in child's words, slowly, and sail it across the gulf in another language to a different-speaking human being!

An easy life doesn't teach us anything. In the end it's the learning that matters: what we've learned and how we've grown

The original sin is to limit the Is. Don't.

I think our learning lies along the path of whatever it is we love.