People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so, in fact.

The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man ... just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

Learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.

People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.

It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.

Don’t be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid - the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.

The most offensive is not their lying - one can always forgive lying - lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth - what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.

Sleep. We can adore one another in the morning

It is painful for the plant which is myself to live in the atmosphere and light of this world. Somewhere an element is lacking which would permit me to continue.

When faith burns itself out, 'tis God who dies and thenceforth proves unavailing.

We need to wash the feet of our enemies.

You can email me, but I prefer letters that come through conventional mail. I like letters that have been licked by strangers.

A person is not really gone until everyone who knew them is gone.

It is because we underrate thought, because we do not see what a great element it is in religious life, that there is so little of practical and consistent religion among us.

Attachment is not love. Where there is attachment there is exploitation.

The motto of Harvard isn't 'nice,' it's truth. The motto of Yale isn't 'light and nice,' it's light and truth.

When you allegorize, you're gonna get everybody saved somehow.