“Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.”

All family life is organized around the most damaged person in it.

The creative writer does the same as the child at play; he creates a world of fantasy which he takes very seriously.

Knowledge is the intellectual manipulation of carefully verified observations.

If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.

A strong egoism is a protection.

The meager satisfaction that man can extract from reality leaves him starving.

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.

My love is something valuable to me which I ought not to throw away without reflection.

Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks.

Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate.

Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea,they become powerless when they oppose it.

All giving is asking, and all asking is an asking for love.

If you can’t do it, give up!

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.

A love that does not discriminate seems to me to forfeit a part of its own value, by doing an injustice to its object; and secondly, not all men are worthy of love.

Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways. We become closed – not only to people’s pain – but also their happiness.

Being wealthy isn’t just a question of having lots of money. It’s a question of what we want. Wealth isn’t an absolute, it’s relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we can’t afford, we can be counted as poor, how much money we may actually have.

There is peace in dungeons, but is that enough to make dungeons desirable?

The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.

It is because we know happiness that we want to be happy, and since nothing is more certain than our wanting to be happy, our notion of happiness guides us in determining the respective goods that then became objects of our desires.

I wished to be loved by another,’ [Éowyn] answered. ‘But I desire no man’s pity.

Blessed are you who circled desire with a blade, and the garden with fiery swords, and heaven and earth with a word.

We have an innate desire to endlessly learn, grow, and develop. We want to become more than what we already are. Once we yield to this inclination for continuous and never-ending improvement, we lead a life of endless accomplishments and satisfaction.

Love is something far more than the desire for sexual intercourse it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.