We have to look at our own inertia, insecurities, self-hate, fear that, in truth, we have nothing valuable to say. read more

We have to look at our own inertia, insecurities, self-hate, fear that, in truth, we have nothing valuable to say. When your writing blooms out of the back of this garbage compost, it is very stable. You are not running from anything. You can have a sense of artistic security. If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self-service populace, read more

The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self-service populace, and all our specious comforts --the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria --are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.

You have to know what's important and what's unimportant, for you.

You have to know what's important and what's unimportant, for you.

People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher or better than themselves.

People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher or better than themselves.

To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is read more

To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self-congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.

If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time read more

If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself.

Human history is the sad result of each one looking out for himself.

Human history is the sad result of each one looking out for himself.

I suppose I have a highly developed capacity for self-delusion, so it's no problem for me to believe that I'm read more

I suppose I have a highly developed capacity for self-delusion, so it's no problem for me to believe that I'm somebody else.

A wise unselfishness is not a surrender of yourself to the wishes of anyone, but only to the best discoverable read more

A wise unselfishness is not a surrender of yourself to the wishes of anyone, but only to the best discoverable course of action.