Society cannot contribute anything to the breeding and growing of ingenious men. A creative genius cannot be trained. There are read more

Society cannot contribute anything to the breeding and growing of ingenious men. A creative genius cannot be trained. There are no schools for creativeness. A genius is precisely a man who defies all schools and rules, who deviates from the traditional roads of routine and opens up new paths through land inaccessible before. A genius is always a teacher, never a pupil; he is always self-made.

Every man is as Heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.

Every man is as Heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

It is easier to love humanity than to love your neighbor.

It is easier to love humanity than to love your neighbor.

The craving to change the world is perhaps a reflection of the craving to change ourselves.

The craving to change the world is perhaps a reflection of the craving to change ourselves.

...the conviction persists - though history has shown it to be a hallucination - that all the questions that the read more

...the conviction persists - though history has shown it to be a hallucination - that all the questions that the human mind has asked are questions that can be answered in terms of the alternatives that the questions themselves present. But in fact intellectual progress usually occurs through sheer abandonment of questions together with both of the alternatives they assume - an abandonment that results from their decreasing vitality and change of urgent interest. We do not solve them: we get over them. Old questions are solved by disappearing, evaporating, while new questions corresponding to the changed attitude of endeavor and preference take their place.

Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.

To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.

It is the acquisition of skills in particular, irrespective of their utility, that is potent in making life meaningful. Since read more

It is the acquisition of skills in particular, irrespective of their utility, that is potent in making life meaningful. Since man has no inborn skills, the survival of the species has depended on the ability to acquire and perfect skills. Hence the mastery of skills is a uniquely human activity and yields deep satisfaction.