“We are all of us obliged, if we are to make reality endurable, to nurse a few little follies in ourselves.”

“A man carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom.”

“If we are to make reality endurable, we must all nourish a fantasy or two.”

“I knew very well that this hope was chimerical. I was like a pauper who mingles fewer tears with his dry bread if he tells himself that at any moment a stranger will bequeath to him his fortune. We must all, in order to make reality more tolerable, keep alive in us a few little follies.”

“If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.”

“In the process we have unnecessarily (and unbiblically) drawn a line of distinction, assigning the obligations of Christianity to a few while keeping the privileges of Christianity for us all.”