It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

Recommended reading: Letters from a Stoic.

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

Recommended reading: The Undiscovered Self.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Recommended reading: The Philosophy of Spinoza.

If we didn’t remember winter in spring, it wouldn’t be as lovely; if we didn’t think of spring in winter, or search winter to find some new emotion of its own to make up for the absent ones, half of the keyboard of life would be missing. We would be playing life with no flats or sharps, on a piano with no black keys.

Recommended reading: Angels and Ages: Lincoln, Darwin, and the Birth of the Modern Age.

Prejudice of any kind… means you don’t see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already a form of violence.

Recommended reading: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment.

As it is, we are merely bolting our lives—gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in—because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to us more boring than simple being.  If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering. Is it surprising that an existence so experienced seems so empty and bare that its hunger for an infinite future is insatiable? But suppose you could answer, “It would take me forever to tell you, and I am much too interested in what’s happening now.” How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god? And, when you consider that this incalculably subtle organism is inseparable from the still more marvelous patterns of its environment—from the minutest electrical designs to the whole company of the galaxies—how is it conceivable that this incarnation of all eternity can be bored with being?

Recommended reading: The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.

Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park… It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself… That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.

Recommended reading: The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays.

It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement. Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs, therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.

Recommended reading: Isocrates and Civic Education.

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.

Recommended reading: The Ethics Of Ambiguity.

The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order… the continuous thread of revelation.

Recommended reading: The Optimist’s Daughter.