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.

Reason is the main resource of man in his struggle for survival.

Reason is the main resource of man in his struggle for survival.

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.

The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.

The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.

We keep, in science, getting a more and more sophisticated view of our essential ignorance.

We keep, in science, getting a more and more sophisticated view of our essential ignorance.

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.

A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.

Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. read more

Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. He is both an unfinished animal and an unfinished man. It is this incurable unfinishedness which sets man apart from other living things. For, in the attempt to finish himself, man becomes a creator. Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing.

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.