“Philosophy had supplied Socrates with convictions in which he had been able to have rational, as opposed to hysterical, confidence when faced with disapproval.”

You need a long hard day’s work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.

Most of what makes a book ‘good’ is that we are reading it at the right moment for us.

Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others.

We need a home in the psychological sense as much as we need one in the physical: to compensate for a vulnerability.

Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the minds weak grasp unless fixed there by imagery and style.

These inventors were elevating the formulation of entrepreneurial ideas to the status of a visionary activity. Though forced to justify their efforts in the pragmatic language of venture capital, they were at heart utopian thinkers intent on transforming the world.

In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer’s words, to turn pain into knowledge.

How do the stems connect to the roots?’ ‘Where is the mist coming from?’ ‘Why does one tree seem darker than another?’ These questions are implicitly asked and answered in the process of sketching.

As victims of hurt, we frequently don’t bring up what ails us, because so many wounds look absurd in the light of day.

There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.

Socrates, on being insulted in the marketplace, asked by a passerby, “Don’t you worry about being called names?” retorted, “Why? Do you think I should resent it if an ass had kicked me?

Although I don’t believe in God, Bach’s music shows me what a love of God must feel like.

When I see someone like Richard Dawkins, I see my father. I grew up with that. I’m basically the child of Richard Dawkins.

The challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other’s smartphone.

William James once made an acute point about the relationship between happiness and expectation. He argued that satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every endeavour.

Mental health: having enough safe places in your mind for your thoughts to settle.

My parents’ convictions, when it came to discipline, were not very strong.

Man’s pursuit of physical desires and earthly possessions is an indication of his lack of conviction that the purpose of his existence is the attainment of spirituality.

You must at the price of dearest peace lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire of your faith.

By the mind one is bound; by the mind one is freed. … He who asserts with strong conviction: “I am not bound, I am free,” becomes free.

Irrespective of doubts and convictions, and for the Infinite Love I bear for one and all, I continue to come as the Avatar, to be judged time and again by humanity in its ignorance, in order to help man distinguish the Real from the false.

The heart is long, very long in receiving the convictions that is forced upon it by reason… affection still lingers in the Bosom, even after esteem has taken its flight.

Somewhere in my head, a private conviction exists that ‘Search is the Process’ and ‘Discovery the Art Form.

And this has nothing to do with conviction and with religious beliefs, because those are immutable. But we need a new discourse that will be adapted to a new world and which will remove some of the misconceptions