"We are made kind by being kind."

"Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do."

"There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other."

"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."

"We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves."

"Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless."

"Even in slight things the experience of the new is rarely without some stirring of foreboding."

"Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us."

"The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a God or not. The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion."

"Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from."

"Not actual suffering but the hope of better things incites people to revolt."

"Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil."

"The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves."

"Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident."

"Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible."

"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket."

"We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire."

"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."

"It is thus with most of us we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay."

"Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice."

"Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation."

"Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible."

"There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail."

"We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind."

"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."

"Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing."

"The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle."

"Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength."

"The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it."

"We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves."

"The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves."

"I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind."

"Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there."

"Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives."

"With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves."

"It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind."

"You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you."

"There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size."

"We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand."

"It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt."

"There is a radicalism in all getting and a conservatism in all keeping. Lovemaking is radical while marriage is conservative."

"Treasure the memories of past misfortunes they constitute our bank of fortitude."

"Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know."

"Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are."

"The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person."

"We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about."

"When people are bored it is primarily with themselves."

"To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question."

"Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves."

"A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor."