“The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hearmuch; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of ourfriends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as muchas possibly we can; to hearken.”

“We can never succeed in knowing our own self without holidays and anniversaries.”

“In conversation we are sometimes confused by the tone of our own voice, and mislead to make assertions that do not at all correspond to our opinions.”

“Independence is counterfeit freedom. We think if we can make all our own choices and do our own thing, we will be free. But the opposite is true. By trying to be independent, we are attempting to take God’s place as the ruler of our lives. We can never succeed at creating happiness because we are the created, not the Creator.”

“Whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not, the Western conception of human rights is really about the practices of other states--but never our own. One reason Western people have adopted this worldview is that it tends to make us look good. But another possible reason might be that our 'wrongs' might not be 'international wrongs' after all.”

“Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.”