The friend does not count his friends on his fingers; they are not numerable.
What friends really mean to each other can be demonstrated better by the exchange of a magic ring or a horn than by psychology.
Our lives are also fed by kind words and gracious behavior. We are nourished by expressions like “excuse me,” and other such simple courtesies. Our spirits are also richly fed on compliments and praise, nourished by consideration as well as whole wheat bread. Rudeness, the absence of the sacrament of consideration, is but another mark that our time-is-money society is lacking in spirituality, if not also in its enjoyment of life.
I’m awfully scared that everyone who knows me as I always am will discover that I have another side, a finer and better side. I’m afraid they’ll laugh at me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental, not take me seriously. . . .
Friendships begun in this world will be taken up again, never to be broken off.
I leave before being left. I decide.
We begin life with the world presenting itself to us as it is. Someone — our parents, teachers, analysts — hypnotizes us to “see” the world and construe it in the “right” way. These others label the world, attach names and give voices to the beings and events in it, so that thereafter, we cannot read the world in any other language or hear it saying other things to us. The task is to break the hypnotic spell, so that we become undeaf, unblind, and multilingual, thereby letting the world speak to us in new voices and write all its possible meaning in the new book of our existence. Be careful in your choice of hypnotists.
There is nothing wrong with you. Anyone who says something is wrong is wrong.
And if you can be compassionate and not revolted by anything you see so you can give people just, exact, unemotional information on the nature of their subconscious, you can help them become more sane.
Love has no claims. Love has no expectations. Most of us were raised to become prostitutes. We have the illusion that with good behavior, good grades, lots of awards, pretty clothes, nice smiles, we can buy love. How many ifs were you raised with? I love you if you make it through high school. I love you if you bring good grades home. Boy, would I love you if I could say my son is a doctor. You become a doctor or a lawyer, or whatever your parents never were able to become, with the illusion that they will love you more. Love can never be bought. There are people who spend their lives prostituting themselves, pleasing other people in the hope of getting love. They will shop the rest of their lives for it and they will never find it.
It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have not had to remake the world.
I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man.
I destroy my enemy by making him my friend.
No one has ever loved anyone the way everyone wants to be loved.
