Life and Existence

He flattered himself on being a man without any prejudices; and this pretension itself is a very great prejudice.

Prejudice is opinion without judgement.

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.

Talking much about oneself may be a way of hiding oneself.

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.

Greatness is a road that leads toward something unknown.

By losing your goal—you have lost your way, too!

By losing your goal—you have lost your way, too!

One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts.

It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.

It is not possible to run a course aright when the goal itself has not been rightly placed.

The future is a convenient place for dreams.

To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.

The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.

The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.

Is it not possible that middle age can be looked upon as a period of second flowering, second growth, even a kind of second adolescence?

Is it not possible that middle age can be looked upon as a period of second flowering, second growth, even a kind of second adolescence?

The power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged. God has kept that good wine until now.

our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover.

Folly pursues us throughout our lives, and the man whom we call wise is he whose follies are proportionate to his age and to his fortune.

When men are ruled by fear, they strive to prevent the very changes that will abate it.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

I mean the attempt to prolong family connection unduly, and to make people hang together artificially who would never naturally do so.

In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch-enemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.