"It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living."

"Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity"

"No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart."

"To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance."

"Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there."

"We often use strong language not to express a powerful emotion but to evoke it in us."

"Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen."

"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."

"Really listening and suspending one's own judgment is necessary in order to understand other people on their own terms... This is a process that requires trust and builds trust."

"Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do; they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart."

"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

"For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."