The question that faces every man born into this world is not what should be his purpose, which he should read more

The question that faces every man born into this world is not what should be his purpose, which he should set about to achieve, but just what to do with life? The answer, that he should order his life so that he can find the greatest happiness in it, is more a practical question, similar to that of how a man should spend his weekend, then a metaphysical proposition as to what is the mystic purpose of his life in the scheme of the universe.

There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.

There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.

Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild harmless, rather read more

Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.

The three-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn read more

The three-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots.

Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars.

Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars.

No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.

No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.

There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self read more

There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They asked to be deceived.

Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness. They are read more

Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness. They are more willing to follow their own vision, even when it takes them far from the mainland of the human community. Unexplored places do not frighten them- or not, at any rate, as much as they frighten those around them. This is one of the secrets of their power. That which we call "genius" has a great deal to do with courage and daring, a great deal to do with nerve.

The mentality of an army on the march is merely so much delayed adolescence; it remains persistently, incorrigibly and notoriously read more

The mentality of an army on the march is merely so much delayed adolescence; it remains persistently, incorrigibly and notoriously infantile.