Life and Existence

Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.

Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.

Man creates culture and through culture creates himself.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

I created nothing; I invented nothing; I imagined nothing; I perverted nothing; I simply discovered drama in real life.

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being.

Those move easiest who have learned to dance.

God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.

A great book should leave you with many experiences and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.

The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.

The wise man reads both books and life itself.

Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.

A cold in the head causes less suffering than an idea.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

Thought is action in rehearsal.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.

Serving God is doing good to man. But praying is thought an easier service and is therefore more generally chosen.

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.

The great charm in argument is really finding one’s own opinions, not other people’s .

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.