The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven't been introduc….

In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer's words, to turn pain into knowledge..

Sweetness is the opposite of machismo, which is everywhere-and I really don't get on with machismo. I'm interested in sensitivity, and weakness, and ….

After 40 (old age for most of man's history), one should strive to be more or less packed and ready to go were the end call to come..

Literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others - because it's a tool to help us live and die with a little bit more wisdom, goodnes….

Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess..

Because the rhythm of conversation makes no allowance for dead periods, because the presence of others calls for continuous responses, we are left to….

We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness..

Unnatural to expect that learning to be happy should be any easier than, say, learning to play the violin or require any less practice..

Bad architecture is in the end as much a failure of psychology as of design. It is an example expressed through materials of the same tendencies whic….

Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart she was the ….

In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion..

Being funny should be an incidental byproduct of trying to get to something truthful, not a destination in itself..

What should worry us is not the number of people that oppose us, but how good their reasons are for doing so..

As adults, we try to develop the character traits that would have rescued our parents..