Great Throughts Treasury

"Man is born to live and not prepare to live."

"Can a man control his future? Yes. Despite the system they live under, men everywhere have, I believe, more power over the future than ever before. The important thing is that we must choose to exercise it. What we do today determines how the world shall go, for tomorrow is made up of the sum total of today's experiences... Far from feeling hopeless or helpless, we must seize every opportunity, however small, to help the world around us toward peace, productivity and human brotherhood."

"Formlessness is more complex than form."

"In life it is more necessary to lose than to gain. A seed will only germinate if it dies."

"Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us."

"The direct speech of feeling is allegorical and cannot be replaced by anything."

"The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant, systematic duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected, if day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune. Our nervous system isn't just a fiction, it's a part of our physical body, our soul exists in space inside us, like the teeth in our mouth. It can't be forever violated with impunity."