“Worthlessness is the default condition.”

If you cannot understand why someone did something, look at the consequences – and infer the motivation.

You must determine where you are going in your life, because you cannot get there unless you move in that direction.

Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned.

I’m not hurt. I’m appalled.

It’s the chattering buzz of ideologically possessed demons.

Beauty shames the ugly. Strength shames the weak. Death shames the living – and the Ideal shames us all.

I don’t think that you have any insight whatsoever into your capacity for good until you have some well-developed insight into your capacity for evil.

Experience is the best teacher, and the worst experiences teach the best lessons.

The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.

You deserve some respect. You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world.

It’s a luxury to pursue what makes you happy; it’s a moral obligation to pursue what you find meaningful.

You should not overlook the guidelines of your culture. Life is short, and you don’t have time to figure everything out on your own. The wisdom of the past was hard-earned, and your dead ancestors may have something useful to tell you.

Nietzsche said that a man’s worth was determined by how much truth he could tolerate.

The secret to your existence is right in front of you. It manifests itself as all those things you know you should do but are avoiding.

Much of happiness is hope, no matter how deep the underworld in which that hope was conceived.

You don’t get to choose not to pay a price, you only get to choose which price you pay.

The truth is that we can learn to condition our minds, bodies, and emotions to link pain or pleasure to whatever we choose. By changing what we link pain and pleasure to, we will instantly change our behaviors.

Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.

The change is from inner to outer. We start by dissolving our attitude not by altering outer conditions.

Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.

It is your decisions, and not your conditions, that determine your destiny.

Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being.

Most certainly, some planets are not inhabited, but others are, and among these there must exist life under all conditions and phases of development.

Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.