Life and Existence

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

Nobody sees with his eyes alone; we see with our souls.

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego.

Everyone has his vanity, and each one’s vanity is his forgetting that there are others with an equal soul.

Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view— until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.

The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own.

All persons are puzzles until at last we find in some word or act the key to the man, to the woman; straightway all their past words and actions lie in light before us.

No one has ever taken the trouble to stretch and carry his understanding as far as it could go.

Error is to truth as sleep is to waking. I have observed that one turns, as if refreshed, from error back to truth.

To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful.

Half the trouble in life is caused by pretending there isn’t any.

Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection.

To lose your prejudices you must travel.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is.

The innocent and the beautiful Have no enemy but time.

Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.

Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks.

Time is the reef upon which all of our frail mystic ships are wrecked.

Associate reverently and as much as you can with your loftiest thoughts.

There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.