For though consciences are as unlike as foreheads, every intelligence, not including the Scriptural devils who "believe and tremble" has one.

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change

Intelligence must follow faith never precede it and never destroy it.

What is kinder--to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance--or to see them as they are, and accept it because it makes them comfortable?

You keep taking note of whatever confirms your ideas — better to write down what refutes and weakens them!

The touch to which one resigns oneself because all resistance appears hopeless — and particularly so as regards the future — has, in our society, become the arrest . The feel of the hand of authority on his shoulder is usually enough to make a man give himself up without having to be actually seized. He cowers and goes quietly.

Any life is laughable if one knows it well enough. It is something serious and terrible if one knows it even better.

qualquer pessoa encontra, encarnadas nessa vida, as convicções que lhe são mais importantes lado a lado com aquelas que mais profundamente abomina.

The more you ask certain questions, the more dangerous they become.

In the beginning was belief, foolish belief, and faith, empty faith, and illusion, the terrible illusion. ... We believed in God, had faith in man, and lived with the illusion that in each one of us is a sacred spark from the fire of the shekinah, that each one carried in his eyes and in his soul the sign of God. This was the source—if not the cause—of all our misfortune.

In the beginning there was faith—which is childish; trust—which is vain; and illusion—which is dangerous. We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekhinah's flame; that every one of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God's image. That was the source if not the cause of all our ordeals.

In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust, which is vain; and illusion, which is dangerous." He believed that after awhile everything would go away and everything would be fine. But he realized he was just lying to himself because everything kept getting worse.