Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end results of

Adolescence

Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.

Age and Aging

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.

Brotherhood

There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.

Compassion

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

Credulity

Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.

Dissent

The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others but also with ourselves.

Ends and Means

We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.

Exaggeration

Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.

Failure

They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.

Fatigue

Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.

Freedom

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

Frustration

It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.

God

To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain enormously in confidence before he could conceive an all-powerful God who obeys his own laws.

Hatred

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

Ignorance

Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

Influence

It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.

Learning

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

Malice

It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men.

Neighbors

It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.

Obvious

To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.

Passion

There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.

Power

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence. They hate not wickedness but weakness. When it is in their power to do so, the weak destroy weakness wherever they see it.

Resentment

To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life.

Salvation

The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.

Self-image

No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are.

Talent

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

Weakness

It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat; that they are chosen when they are shunned.