“The man who must brag for himself knows that no one else will”

“A man who takes himself too seriously will find that no one else takes him seriously.”

“If the great paradox of Christianity means anything it means this- that we must take the crown in our hands, and go hunting in dry places and dark corners of the earth until we find the one man who feels himself unfit to wear it. Carlyle was quite wrong; we have not got to crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule. Rather we must crown the much more exceptional man who knows he can't.”

“How must he prove himself? What was it they wished to know of him? And what did he know of himself here where loneliness was an unavoidable element of life, and a man must rely solely on himself?”

“No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself. No man is free who cannot command himself.”

“A man must shape himself to a new mark directly the old one goes to ground.”