We almost always have something to prove when we act heroically. We prove to ourselves and others that we are not what we and others thought we were. Our real self is petty, greedy, cowardly, dishonest and stewing in malice. And now in defying death and spitting in its eye we grasp at the chance of a grand refutation.

We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to attain excellence. To discover what a man truly craves but knows he cannot have …

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

As for the people who say tackling problems through clothes is superficial, I think they say that because they have their own issues about self worth.

I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.

The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will and meanness in their fellow men. Self-contempt, howeve…