The great French Impressionist painter Renoir, right at the end of his very long life, said to a friend, "I am just now learning to paint." Renoir carried his gift with a humility which realized how much he still had to learn. Anyone who goes deeply into a field in life and realizes this, gains a sense of proportion that can only make you humble.

The heart, like the grape, is prone to delivering its harvest in the same moment it appears to be crushed.

Each of us is already special in the sense that nobody has the unique pattern of potentialities that anyone else has.

I live in California, where there's a lot of driving entailed. I'm usually going somewhere to be on time to meet someone so I'm necessarily engaged in time. And yet, how can I in that moment of driving my car, be aware of that which is not going anywhere?

When you die, God and the Angels will hold you accountable for all the pleasures you were allowed in life that you denied yourself.

The natural wish and impetus to feel oneself to be an individual, to be special, includes standing out more than anyone else.

We can acquire as much knowledge as we would like with a few taps on our keyboard. That's extremely valuable, but wisdom comes again from some different dimension.