A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes-within the limits of endowment and environment-he has made out of himself.

Don't aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run — in the long run, I say — success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.

Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.

What is to give light must endure burning.

The meaning of my life is to help others find meaning in theirs.

As such, I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.

Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.