The secret motive of the absent-minded is to be innocent while guilty. Absent-mindedness is spurious innocence.

Humankind struggles with collective powers for its freedom, the individual struggles with dehumanization for the possession of his soul.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war.

Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty; but learn to be happy alone.

I am a phoenix who runs after arsonists.

You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.

Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.

A man is only as good as what he loves.

When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.

Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps.

What a sad thing I thought-- to live in a world so concerned with the lives of others, we forget to live our own.

It is these big-hearted sons of the soil, no matter what their cast or creed, who will one day weld the contending factions into a composite whole, and make of India a great nation.

On the last morning of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War, I built a fire and sat facing a window of darkness where at sunrise I knew I would find the sea.

The forces which move the cosmos are not different from those which move the human soul.

Don't ever give up what you want in life. The struggle is worth it.

God is not a personality outside of you. What God is, is inextricably part of what you are. God is the dimension of depth within you.

This is the pure form of servitude: to exist as an instrument.

I don't know if I'll ever do it again or not, but frankly I don't really care.

You're never more alive than in battle." "Never more dead after," I say.

Any disease that is treated as a mystery and acutely enough feared will be felt to be morally, if not literally, contagious.