“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.”

“No single event can awaken within us a stranger whose existence we had never suspected. To live is to be slowly born.”

“To live is to be born slowly. it would be a little too easy to borrow ready-made souls!”

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

“The strong are strengthened by reverses; the trouble is that the true meaning of events scores next to nothing in the match we play with men. Appearances decide our gains or losses and the points are trumpery. And a mere semblance of defeat may hopelessly checkmate us.”

“No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him.”

“He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man”