A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying – lying to others and to yourself.
The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.
When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul-then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness.
The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!
It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.
The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill–he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.
Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.
Learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.
I must add… my gratitude to you for the attention with which you have listened to me, for, from my numerous observations, our Liberals are never capable of letting anyone else have a conviction of his own without at once meeting their opponent with abuse or even something worse.
People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
You can be sincere and still be stupid.
The most offensive is not their lying – one can always forgive lying – lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth – what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.
If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man … just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he’s a good man.
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.
Be the sun and all will see you.
If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.
It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.
Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate … the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.
What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
And so I ask myself: ‘Where are your dreams?’ And I shake my head and mutter: ‘How the years go by!’ And I ask myself again: ‘What have you done with those years? Where have you buried your best moments? Have you really lived? Look,’ I say to myself, ‘how cold it is becoming all over the world!’ And more years will pass and behind them will creep grim isolation. Tottering senility will come hobbling, leaning on a crutch, and behind these will come unrelieved boredom and despair. The world of fancies will fade, dreams will wilt and die and fall like autumn leaves from the trees. . . .
The more incompetent one feels, the more eager he is to fight.
