In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.

We receive love — from our children as well as others — not in proportion to our demands or sacrifices or needs, but roughly in proportion to our own capacity to love.

The individual human is still the creature who can wonder, who can be enchanted by a sonata, who can place symbols together to make poetry to gladden our heart, who can view a sunrise with a sense of majesty and awe.

Apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice.

What is courage? This courage will not be the opposite of despair. We shall often be faced with despair, as indeed every sensitive person has been during the last several decades in this country. Hence Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and Camus and Sartre have proclaimed that courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.

Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.