“Territory matters, and there is little difference between territorial rights and social status. It is often a matter of life and death.”

People who know what to expect from one another can act together to tame the world.

When you have something to say, silence is a lie.

When the aristocracy catches a cold, as it is said, the working class dies of pneumonia.

The purpose of life, as far as I can tell, is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant.

True thinking is rare – just like true listening.

It is better, proverbially, to rule your own spirit than to rule a city.

To act is literally to manifest preference about one set of possibilities, contrasted with an infinite set of alternatives. If we wish to live, we must act. Acting, we value.

That’s poetic in its malevolence.

Anyone who was out to change the world by changing others was to be regarded with suspicion. The temptations of such a position were too great to be resisted.

What you aim at determines what you see.

Worthlessness is the default condition.

Consciousness is a mystery that faces the mystery of potential and transforms it into actuality. We do that with every choice we make. Our choices determine the destiny of the world. By making a choice, you alter the structure of reality.

If you betray yourself, if you say untrue things, if you act out a lie, you weaken your character.

It took untold generations to get you where you are. A little gratitude might be in order. If you’re going to insist on bending the world to your way, you better have your reasons.

The things that pose the greatest threats to your survival are the most real things.

One of the problems with being relatively wealthy if you are a parent is that you cannot provide your children with necessity.

Every man’s last day is fixed. Lifetimes are brief, and not to be regained, for all mankind. But by their deeds to make their fame last: that is labor for the brave.

Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.

In an artist’s life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.

You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.

Every man’s last day is fixed. Lifetimes are brief, and not to be regained, for all mankind. But by their deeds to make their fame last: that is labor for the brave.

Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.

In an artist’s life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.

Death submits to no one.