“The needs for safety, belonging, love relations and for respect can be satisfied only by other people, i.e. only from outside the person.”

The spiritual life is part of the human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not fully human.

I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.

If the essential core of the person is denied or suppressed, he gets sick sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes immediately, sometimes later.

We crave and fear becoming truly ourselves.

When people appear to be something other than good and decent, it is only because they are reacting to stress, pain, or the deprivation of basic human needs such as security, love, and self-esteem.

We may define therapy as a search for value.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, an poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

Don’t worry when you are not recognized but strive to be worthy of recognition.

What one can be, one must be!

The great lesson is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s backyard.

Appreciate again and again, freshly and naively the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy, however stable these experiences may have become to others.

Most people experience both tragedy and joy in varying proportions. Any philosophy which leaves out either cannot be considered to be comprehensive.

People are not evil; they are schlemiels.

False optimism sooner or later means disillusionment, anger and hopelessness.

The most stable, and therefore, the most healthy self-esteem is based on deserved respect from others rather than on external fame or celebrity and unwarranted adulation.

One of the goals of education should be to teach that life is precious.

But my deepest and most secret love belongs to the fair-haired and the blue-eyed, the bright children of life, the happy, the charming and the ordinary.

Once the demands of necessity and propriety have been met, the rest that one owns belongs to the poor.

I am a man who belongs to no-one and who belongs to everyone.

I’ll put an end to the idea that a woman’s body belongs to her. Nazi ideals demand that the practice of abortion shall be exterminated with a strong hand.

Honey, not every flower belongs to your garden.

Pickles don’t belong in the fridge.

But fear is love that has been convinced that it never belonged.

What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.