“The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them.”

Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant.

Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.

Real freedom is the ability to pause between stimulus and response, and in that pause, choose.

Suffering is nature’s way of indicating a mistaken attitude or way of behavior, and to the nonegocentric person every moment of suffering is the opportunity for growth. People should rejoice in suffering, strange as it sounds, for this is a sign of the availability of energy to transform their characters.

Freedom is man’s capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.

We define religion as the assumption that life has meaning. Religion, or lack of it, is shown not in some intellectual or verbal formulations but in one’s total orientation to life.

This is what makes heroism so important: it reflects our own sense of identity and from this our own heroism is molded.

The essence of being human is that, in the brief moment we exist on this spinning planet, we can love some persons and some things, in spite of the fact that time and death will ultimately claim us all.

Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.

A person can meet anxiety to the extent that his values are stronger than the threat.

Mass communication–wonder as it may be technologically and something to be appreciated and valued–presents us wit a serious daner, the danger of conformism, due to the fact that we all view the same things at the same time in all the cities of the country. (p. 73)

When you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time. It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination.

Courage is necessary to make being and becoming possible.

Creativity is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his world.

It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.

One does not become fully human painlessly.

tall oaks from little acorns grow.