“He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.”

For to be poised against fatality, to meet adverse conditions gracefully, is more than simple endurance; it is an act of aggression, a positive triumph.

What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.

Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.

There is only one real misfortune: to forfeit one’s own good opinion of oneself. Lose your complacency, once betray your own self-contempt and the world will unhesitatingly endorse it.

For the myth is the foundation of life; it is the timeless schema, the pious formula into which life flows when it reproduces its traits out of the unconscious.

I don’t think anyone is thinking long-term now.

It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.

Distance in a straight line has no mystery. The mystery is in the sphere.

Only love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts.

For the sake of goodness and love, man shall let death have no sovereignty over his thoughts.

If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.

Stupid – well, there are so many kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.

We do not fear being called meticulous, inclining as we do to the view that only the exhaustive can be truly interesting.

He took in the squeaky music, the vulgar and pining melodies, because passion immobilizes good taste and seriously considers what soberly would be thought of as funny and to be resented.

Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?

Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.

A women can make an average man great, and a great man average.

There is no form of prose more difficult to understand and more tedious to read than the average scientific paper.

Diminish the mass of evils that afflict the human species, increase enjoyment and well-being. And even if the new routes opened up could prolong the average life of mankind by only a few hours, or even a few days, then the scientist, too could aspire.

You can’t go out and practice average on Wednesday, average on Thursday, okay on Friday and then expect to play well on Sunday.

Half the people you know are below average.

When I played in a 21-team league, there were six or seven goalies who were just average, and the equipment and pads were smaller. I came in the right era. I played for the right team. It was all speed, and creativity and imagination.

An average person with average talents and average ambition can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society; if that person has clear focused goals.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.