“If there were no illusions, there would bo no disillusionment. But then one would have no fond memories either, with which fortify oneself against the pain of the reality.”

“The first lesson to learn is to resign oneself to the little difficulties in life, not to hit out at everything one comes up against. If one were able to manage this one would not need to cultivate great power; even one's presence would be healing.”

“Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.”

“One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.”

“And if all could with one voice be asked whether they wished to be happy, there is no doubt they would all answer that they would. And this would not be possible unless the thing itself, which we call "happiness", were held in memory.”

“For if we regard space and time as properties that must, as regards their possibility, be found in things in themselves, [...] then we really cannot blame the good Bishop Berkeley for degrading bodies to mere illusion. Nay, even our own existence, which would thus be made dependent on the self-subsistent reality of a non-entity such as time, would, along with this time, be changed into mere illusion - an absurdity of which hitherto no one has been guilty.”