If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.

Menschen, die keine Laster haben, haben auch nur wenige Tugenden.

Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.

We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.

If we accord importance to the kind of portraits which surround us, it is because we fashion our lives according to their example, accepting aspects of ourselves if they concur with what others mention of themselves.

We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew… Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful... and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.

She learned a long time ago people were driven by what they thought about the most. Whatever surfaced each morning when they opened their eyes ruled their hearts. Good. Evil. Love. Hate. Benevolence. Sex. Greed.   

A fogged brain puts everyone in danger.

Jesus does not impose intolerable restrictions on his disciples, he does not forbid them to look at anything, but bids them look on him. If they do that he knows that their gaze will always be pure, even when they look upon a woman.

The distinction between objective and personal thinking must truly first be learned. Many people never learn this (look at our colleagues in the ministry! among others).

Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dispersion to concentration, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation.

Most of life's battles are won or lost in the mind.