Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.
— Eric Hoffer
It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities and talents.
A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words.
There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.
Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.
The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.
There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
Animals often strike us as passionate machines.
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.
Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.
Children are the keys of paradise.
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
Facts are counterrevolutionary.
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.
Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.
Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are.
The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.
