The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the read more

The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the future, and therefore the more likely it is that more people will make more plans in such areas.

You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is read more

You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.

Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only read more

Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence.

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.

Our minds can work for us or against us at any given moment. We can learn to accept and live read more

Our minds can work for us or against us at any given moment. We can learn to accept and live with the natural psychological laws that govern us, understanding how to flow with life rather than struggle against it. We can return to our natural state of contentment.

Whence come these hatreds...? They are an expression of a desperate effort to suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, read more

Whence come these hatreds...? They are an expression of a desperate effort to suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, guilt and other shortcomings of the self. Self-contempt is here transmuted into hatred of others- and there is a most determined and persistent effort to mask this switch.

There is probably an element of malice in the readiness to overestimate people: we are laying up for ourselves the read more

There is probably an element of malice in the readiness to overestimate people: we are laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.

...aesthetic values are changed under the influence of sexual emotion; from the lover's point of view many things are beautiful read more

...aesthetic values are changed under the influence of sexual emotion; from the lover's point of view many things are beautiful which are unbeautiful from the point of view of him who is not a lover, and the greater the degree to which the lover is swayed by his passion the greater the extent to which his normal aesthetic standard is liable to be modified.

As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which read more

As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape. - Aphorisms and Reflections.