Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.
Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others.
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
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.
Our great weariness comes from work not done.
We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.
The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.
The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility.
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.