Men think that it is impossible for a human being to love his enemies, for enemies are hardly able to endure the sight of one another. Well, then, shut your eyes--and your enemy looks just like your neighbor.

There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life's highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.

Thus our own age is essentially one of understanding, and on the average, perhaps, more knowledgeable than any former generation, but it is without passion. Every one knows a great deal, we all know which way we ought to go and all the different ways we can go, but nobody is willing to move.

Affliction is able to drown out every earthly voice. . . but the voice of eternity within a person it cannot drown.

In order to help another effectively, I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him... instruction begins when you put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it.

A curiously interested observer sees a great deal, a scientifically interested observer is worthy of all honor, and anxiously interested observer sees what others do not see, but a crazy observer sees perhaps the most, his observation is more intense and more persistent, just as the senses of certain animals are sharper than those of man.

People settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness.