The same suffering is much harder to bear for a high motive than for a base one. The people [during World War II] who stood motionless, from one to eight in the morning, for the sake of having an egg, would have found it very difficult to do in order to save a human life.

Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.

Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.

Someone who does not see a pane of glass is not aware of not seeing it.

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.

There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.