The contradictions the mind comes up against, these are the only realities, the criterion of the real. There is no contradiction in what is imaginary. Contradiction is the test of necessity.

To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.

A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams.

Those who love a cause are those who love the life which has to be led in order to serve it.

How many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?

Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.

A modern factory reaches perhaps almost the limit of horror. Everybody in it is constantly harassed and kept on edge by the interference of extraneous wills while the soul is left in cold desolate misery. What man needs is silence and warmth; what he is given is an icy pandemonium. Physical labor may be painful, but it is not degrading as such. It is not art; it is not science; it is something else, possessing an exactly equal value with art and science, for it provides an equal opportunity to reach the impersonal stage of attention.